THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


GIFT  OF 

Professor  Malbone 
Graham 


MALBONE: 


AN     OLDPORT     ROMANCE 


BY 

THOMAS  WENTWORTH   HIGGINSON. 


"What  is  Nature  unless  there  is  an  eventful  human  life  passing  within 
her?  Many  joys  and  many  sorrows  are  the  lights  and  shadows  in  which 
she  shows  most  beautiful."  —  THOREAU,  MS.  Diary. 


BOSTON: 
LEE    AND    SHEPARD,    PUBLISHERS. 

NEW  YORK: 

CHARLES  T.   DILLINGHAM. 

1882. 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1869,  by 

FIELDS,     OSGOOD,     &    CO., 
in  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  of  the  District  of  Massachusetts. 


UNIVERSITY  PRESS:  JOHN  WILSON  &  SON, 
CAMBRIDGE. 


PS 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 
PRELUDE  ,  -    .    1 


I.  AN  ARRIVAL 3 

IL  PLACE  AUX  DAMES  ! 18 

III.  A  DRIVE  ON  THE  AVENUE    ....  30 

IV.  AUNT  JANE  DEFINES  HER  POSITION  .        .  40 
V.  A  MULTIVALVE  HEART 50 

VI.  "SOME  LOVER'S  CLEAR  DAY"    ...  61 

VII.  AN  INTERNATIONAL  EXPOSITION  ...  76 

VIII.  TALKING  IT  OVER       .        .        .        .        .  89 

IX.  DANGEROUS  WAYS 106 

X.  REMONSTRANCES 114 

XI.  DESCENSUS  AVERNI 122 

XII.  A  NEW  ENGAGEMENT        ....  133 

XIII.  DREAMING  DREAMS 148 

XIV.  THE  NEMESIS  OF  PASSION  .       .        .       .  •  157 
XV.  ACROSS  THE  BAY 164 

XVI.  ON  THE  STAIRS 176 

XVII.  DISCOVERY      .       .       .       .       .       .       .183 


931672 


iv  Contents. 

XVIII.  HOPE'S  VIGIL 190 

XIX.  DE  PROFUNDIS      .        .        .  .        .  200 

XX.  AUNT  JANE  TO  THE  RESCUE   .       .       .  205 

XXI.  A  STORM 214 

XXII.  OUT  OF  THE  DEPTHS        ....  224 

XXIII.  REQUIESCAT 241 


MALBONE. 


PRELUDE. 

AS  one  wanders  along  this  southwestern 
promontory  of  the  Isle  of  Peace,  and 
looks  down  upon  the  green  translucent  water 
which  forever  bathes  the  marble  slopes  of  the 
Pirates'  Cave,  it  is  natural  to  think  of  the  ten 
wrecks  with  which  the  past  winter  has  strewn 
this  shore.  Though  almost  all  trace  of  their 
presence  is  already  gone,  yet  their  mere  memory 
lends  to  these  cliffs  a  human  interest.  Where 
a  stranded  vessel  lies,  thither  all  steps  con 
verge,  so  long  as  one  plank  remains  upon  an 
other.  There  centres  the  emotion.  All  else 
is  but  the  setting,  and  the  eye  sweeps  with  in 
difference  the  line  of  unpeopled  rocks.  They 
are  barren,  till  the  imagination  has  tenanted 
them  with  possibilities  of  danger  and  dismay. 
The  ocean  provides  the  scenery  and  properties 
of  a  perpetual  tragedy,  but  the  interest  arrives 
with  the  performers.  Till  then  the  shores  re- 
i  A 


2  Malboiic. 

main  vacant,  like  the  great  conventional  arm 
chairs  of  the  French  drama,  that  wait  for 
Rachel  to  come  and  die. 

Yet  as  I  ride  along  this  fashionable  avenue 
in  August,  and  watch  the  procession  of  the 
young  and  fair,  —  as  I  look  at  stately  houses, 
from  each  of  which  has  gone  forth  almost  with 
in  my  memory  a  funeral  or  a  bride, —  then 
every  thoroughfare  of  human  life  becomes  in 
fancy  but  an  ocean  shore,  with  its  ripples  and 
its  wrecks.  One  learns,  in  growing  older,  that 
no  fiction  can  be  so  strange  nor  appear  so  im 
probable  as  would  the  simple  truth  ;  and  that 
doubtless  even  Shakespeare  did  but  timidly 
transcribe  a  few  of  the  deeds  and  passions  he 
had  personally  known.  For  no  man  of  middle 
age  can  dare  trust  himself  to  portray  life  in  its 
full  intensity,  as  he  has  studied  or  shared  it ; 
he  must  resolutely  set  aside  as  indescribable  the 
things  most  worth  describing,  and  must  expect 
to  be  charged  with  exaggeration,  even  when 
he  tells  the  rest. 


Malbone.  3 

I. 

AN    ARRIVAL. 

T  T  was  one  of  the  changing  days  of  our  Old- 
-^  port  midsummer.  In  the  morning  it  had 
rained  in  rather  a  dismal  way,  and  Aunt  Jane 
had  said  she  should  put  it  in  her  diary.  It  was 
a  very  serious  thing  for  the  elements  when 
they  got  into  Aunt  Jane's  diary.  By  noon  the 
sun  came  out  as  clear  and  sultry  as  if  there 
had  never  been  a  cloud,  the  northeast  wind 
died  away,  the  bay  was  motionless,  the  first  lo 
cust  of  the  summer  shrilled  from  the  elms,  and 
the  robins  seemed  to  be  serving  up  butterflies 
hot  for  their  insatiable  second  brood,  while 
nothing  seemed  desirable  for  a  human  lun 
cheon  except  ice-cream  and  fans.  In  th^ 
afternoon  the  southwest  wind  came  up  the  bay, 
with  its  line  of  dark-blue  ripple  and  its  deli 
cious  coolness  ;  while  the  hue  of  the  water  grew 
more  and  more  intense,  till  we  seemed  to  be 
living  in  the  heart  of  a  sapphire. 

True  household  sat  beneath  the  large  western 
doorway  of  the  old  Maxwell  House,  —  the  rear 


4  Malbonc. 

door,  which  looks  on  the  water.  The  house 
had  just  been  reoccupied  by  my  Aunt  Jane, 
whose  great-grandfather  had  built  it,  though  it 
had  for  several  generations  been  out  of  the 
family.  I  know  no  finer  specimen  of  those 
large  colonial  dwellings  in  which  the  genius 
of  Sir  Christopher  Wren  bequeathed  traditions 
of  stateliness  to  our  democratic  days.  Its  cen 
tral  hall  has  a  carved  archway  ;  most  of  the 
rooms  have  painted  tiles  and  are  wainscoted  to 
the  ceiling  ;  the  sashes  are  red-cedar,  the  great 
staircase  mahogany  ;  there  are  pilasters  with 
delicate  Corinthian  capitals  ;  there  are  cherubs' 
heads  and  wings  that  go  astray  and  lose  them 
selves  in  closets  and  behind  glass  doors  ;  there 
are  curling  acanthus-leaves  that  cluster  over 
shelves  and  ledges,  and  there  are  those  grace 
ful  shell-patterns  which  one  often  sees  on  old 
furniture,  but  rarely  in  houses.  The  high  front 
door  still  retains  its  Ionic  cornice  ;  and  the 
western  entrance,  looking  on  the  bay,  is  sur 
mounted  by  carved  fruit  and  flowers,  and  is 
crowned,  as  is  the  roof,  with  that  pineapple  in 
whose  symbolic  wealth  the  rich  merchants  of 
the  last  century  delighted. 

Like  most  of  the  statelier  houses  in  that  re 
gion  of  Oldport,  this  abode  had  its  rumors  of 


Malbone,  5 

a  ghost  and  of  secret  chambers.  The  ghost  had 
never  been  properly  lionized  nor  laid,  for  Aunt 
Jane,  the  neatest  of  housekeepers,  had  discour 
aged  all  silly  explorations,  had  at  once  re 
quired  all  barred  windows  to  be  opened,  all 
superfluous  partitions  to  be  taken  down,  and 
several  highly  eligible  dark-closets  to  be  nailed 
up.  If  there  was  anything  she  hated,  it  was 
nooks  and  odd  corners.  Yet  there  had  been 
times  that  year,  when  the  household  would  have 
been  glad  to  find  a  few  more  such  hiding- 
places  ;  for  during  the  first  few  weeks  the 
house  had  been  crammed  with  guests  so  close 
ly  that  the  very  mice  had  been  ill-accommo 
dated  and  obliged  to  sit  up  all  night,  which  had 
caused  them  much  discomfort  and  many  audi 
ble  disagreements. 

But  this  first  tumult  had  passed  away  ;  and 
now  there  remained  only  the  various  nephews 
and  nieces  of  the  house,  including  a  due  pro 
portion  of  small  children.  Two  final  guests 
were  to  arrive  that  day,  bringing  the  latest 
breath  of  Europe  on  their  wings,  —  Philip 
Malbone,  Hope's  betrothed  ;  and  little  Emilia, 
Hope's  half-sister. 

None  of  the  family  had  seen  Emilia  since 
her  wandering  mother  had  taken  her  abroad, 


6  Malbone. 

a  fascinating  spoiled  child  of  four,  and  they 
were  all  eager  to  see  in  how  many  ways  the 
succeeding  twelve  years  had  completed  or  cor 
rected  the  spoiling.  As  for  Philip,  he  had 
been  spoiled,  as  Aunt  Jane  declared,  from  the 
day  of  his  birth,  by  the  joint  effort  of  all 
friends  and  neighbors.  Everybody  had  con 
spired  to  carry  on  the  process  except  Aunt 
Jane  herself,  who  directed  toward  him  one  of 
her  honest,  steady,  immovable  dislikes,  which 
may  be  said  to  have  dated  back  to  the  time 
when  his  father  and  mother  were  married, 
some  years  before  he  personally  entered  on  the 
scene. 

The  New  York  steamer,  detained  by  the 
heavy  fog  of  the  night  before,  now  came  in 
unwonted  daylight  up  the  bay.  At  the  first 
glimpse,  Harry  and  the  boys  pushed  off  in  the 
row-boat  ;  for,  as  one  of  the  children  said,  any 
body  who  had  been  to  Venice  would  naturally 
wish  to  come  to  the  very  house  in  a  gondola. 
In  another  half-hour  there  was  a  great  en 
tanglement  of  embraces  at  the  water-side,  for 
the  guests  had  landed. 

Malbone's  self-poised  easy  grace  was  the 
same  as  ever ;  his  chestnut-brown  eyes  were 
as  winning,  his  features  as  handsome  ;  his  com- 


Malbone.  7 

plexion,  too  clearly  pink  for  a  man,  had  a  sea 
bronze  upon  it :  he  was  the  same  Philip  who 
had  left  home,  though  with  some  added  lines 
of  care.  But  in  the  brilliant  little  fairy  beside 
him  all  looked  in  vain  for  the  Emilia  they  re 
membered  as  a  child.  Her  eyes  were  more 
beautiful  than  ever,  —  the  darkest  violet  eyes, 
that  grew  luminous  with  thought  and  almost 
black  with  sorrow.  Her  gypsy  taste,  as  every 
body  used  to  call  it,  still  showed  itself  in  the 
scarlet  and  dark  blue  of  her  dress  ;  but  the 
clouded  gypsy  tint  had  gone  from  her  cheek, 
and  in  its  place  shone  a  deep  carnation,  so 
hard  and  brilliant  that  it  appeared  to  be  enam 
elled  on  the  surface,  yet  so  firm  and  deep-dyed 
that  it  seemed  as  if  not  even  death  could 
ever  blanch  it.  There  is  a  kind  of  beauty 
that  seems  made  to  be  painted  on  ivory,  and 
such  was  hers.  Only  the  microscopic  pencil 
of  a  miniature-painter  could  portray  those 
slender  eyebrows,  that  arched  caressingly  over 
the  beautiful  eyes,  — or  the  silky  hair  of  dark 
est  chestnut  that  crept  in  a  wavy  line  along 
the  temples,  as  if  longing  to  meet  the  brows,  — 
or  those  unequalled  lashes  !  "  Unnecessarily 
long,"  Aunt  Jane  afterwards  pronounced  them  ; 
while  Kate  had  to  admit  that  they  did  indeed 


8  Malbone. 

give  Emilia  an  overdressed  look  at  breakfast, 
and  that  she  ought  to  have  a  less  showy  set  to 
match  her  morning  costume. 

But  what  was  most  irresistible  about  Emilia, 
—  that  which  we  all  noticed  in  this  interview, 
and  which  haunted  us  all  thenceforward,  —  was 
a  certain  wild,  entangled  look  she  wore,  as  of 
some  untamed  out-door  thing,  and  a  kind  of 
pathetic  lost  sweetness  in  her  voice,  which 
made  her  at  once  and  forever  a  heroine  of  ro 
mance  with  the  children.  Yet  she  scarcely 
seemed  to  heed  their  existence,  and  only  sub 
mitted  to  the  kisses  of  Hope  and  Kate  as  if 
that  were  a  part  of  the  price  of  coming  home, 
and  she  must  pay  it. 

Had  she  been  alone,  there  might  have  been 
an  awkward  pause ;  for  if  you  expect  a  cousin, 
and  there  alights  a  butterfly  of  the  tropics, 
what  hospitality  can  you  offer  ?  But  no  sense 
of  embarrassment  ever  came  near  Malbone, 
especially  with  the  children  to  swarm  over  him 
and  claim  him  for  their  own.  Moreover,  little 
Helen  got  in  the  first  remark  in  the  way  of 
serious  conversation. 

"  Let  me  tell  him  something ! "  said  the 
child.  "Philip!  that  doll  of  mine  that  you 
used  to  know,  only  think  !  she  was  sick  and 


Malbone,  9 

died  last  summer,  and  went  into  the  rag-bag. 
And  the  other  split  down  the  back,  so  there 
was  an  end  of  her." 

Polar  ice  would  have  been  thawed  by  this 
reopening  of  communication.  Philip  soon  had 
the  little  maid  on  his  shoulder,  —  the  natural 
throne  of  all  children,  —  and  they  went  in  to 
gether  to  greet  Aunt  Jane. 

Aunt  Jane  was  the  head  of  the  house,  —  a 
lady  who  had  spent  more  than  fifty  years  in 
educating  her  brains  and  battling  with  her  ail 
ments.  She  had  received  from  her  parents  a 
considerable  inheritance  in  the  way  of  whims, 
and  had  nursed  it  up  into  a  handsome  fortune. 
Being  one  of  the  most  impulsive  of  human  be 
ings,  she  was  naturally  one  of  the  most  enter 
taining  ;  and  behind  all  her  eccentricities  there 
was  a  fund  of  the  soundest  sense  and  the  ten- 
derest  affection.  She  had  seen  much  and  va 
ried  society,  had  been  greatly  admired  in  her 
youth,  but  had  chosen  to  remain  unmarried. 
Obliged  by  her  physical  condition  to  make  her 
self  the  first  object,  she  was  saved  from  utter 
selfishness  by  sympathies  as  democratic  as  her 
personal  habits  were  exclusive.  Unexpected 
and  commonly  fantastic  in  her  doings,  often 
dismayed  by  small  difficulties,  but  never  by 


io  Malbone. 

large  ones,  she  sagaciously  administered  the 
affairs  of  all  those  around  her,  —  planned  their 
dinners  and  their  marriages,  fought  out  their 
bargains  and  their  feuds. 

She  hated  everything  irresolute  or  vague  ;  "" 
people  might  play  at  cat's-cradle  or  study 
Spinoza,  just  as  they  pleased  ;  but,  whatever  • 
they  did,  they  must  give  their  minds  to  it. 
She  kept  house  from  an  easy-chair,  and  ruled 
her  dependants  with  severity  tempered  by  wit, 
and  by  the  very  sweetest  voice  in  which  reproof 
was  ever  uttered.  She  never  praised  them, 
but  if  they  did  anything  particularly  well,  re 
buked  them  retrospectively,  asking  why  they 
had  never  done  it  well  before  ?  But  she  treated 
them  munificently,  made  all  manner  of  plans 
for  their  comfort,  and  they  all  thought  her  the 
wisest  and  wittiest  of  the  human  race.  So  did 
the  youths  and  maidens  of  her  large  circle  ; 
they  all  came  to  see  her,  and  she  counselled, 
admired,  scolded,  and  petted  them  all.  She 
had  the  gayest  spirits,  and  an  unerring  eye  for  • 
the  ludicrous,  and  she  spoke  her  mind  with  ab 
solute  plainness  to  all  comers.  Her  intuitions 
were  instantaneous  as  lightning,  and,  like  that, 
struck  very  often  in  the  wrong  place.  She 
was  thus  extremely  unreasonable  and  alto 
gether  charming. 


Malbone.  1 1 

Such  was  the  lady  whom  Emilia  and  Mal 
bone  went  up  to  greet,  —  the  one  shyly,  the 
other  with  an  easy  assurance,  such  as  she 
always  disliked.  Emilia  submitted  to  another 
kiss,  while  Philip  pressed  Aunt  Jane's  hand,  as 
he  pressed  all  women's,  and  they  sat  down. 

"  Now  begin  to  tell  your  adventures,"  said 
Kate.  "  People  always  tell  their  adventures 
till  tea  is  ready." 

"  Who  can  have  any  adventures  left,"  said 
Philip,  "after  such  letters  as  I  wrote  you  all?" 

"  Of  which  we  got  precisely  one  ! "  said 
Kate.  "  That  made  it  such  an  event,  after  we 
had  wondered  in  what  part  of  the  globe  you 
might  be  looking  for  the  post-office  !  It  was 
like  finding  a  letter  in  a  bottle,  or  disentangling 
a  person  from  the  Dark  Ages." 

"  I  was  at  Neuchatel  two  months  ;  but  I  had 
no  adventures.  I  lodged  with  a  good  pasteur, 
who  taught  me  geology  and  German." 

"  That  is  suspicious,"  said  Kate.  "  Had  he 
a  daughter  passing  fair  ?  " 

"  Indeed  he  had." 

"  And  you  taught  her  English  ?  That  is 
what  these  beguiling  youths  always  do  in  nov 
els." 

"  Yes." 


1 2  Malbone. 

"  What  was  her  name  ? " 

"  Lili." 

"  What  a  pretty  name  !    How  old  was  she  ? " 

"  She  was  six." 

"  O  Philip  !  "  cried  Kate  ;  "  but  I  might 
have  known  it.  Did  she  love  you  very 
much  ? " 

Hope  looked  up,  her  eyes  full  of  mild  re 
proach  at  the  possibility  of  doubting  any 
child's  love  for  Philip.  He  had  been  her  be 
trothed  for  more  than  a  year,  during  which 
time  she  had  habitually  seen  him  wooing  every 
child  he  had  met  as  if  it  were  a  woman,  — 
which,  for  Philip,  was  saying  a  great  deal. 
Happily  they  had  in  common  the  one  trait  of 
perfect  amiability,  and  she  knew  no  more  how 
to  be  jealous  than  he  to  be  constant. 

"  Lili  was  easily  won,"  he  said.  "  Other 
things  being  equal,  people  of  six  prefer  that 
man  who  is  tallest." 

"  Philip  is  not  so  very  tall,"  said  the  eldest 
of  the  boys,  who  was  listening  eagerly,  and 
growing  rapidly. 

"  No,"  said  Philip,  meekly.  "  But  then  the 
pasteur  was  short,  and  his  brother  was  a 
dwarf." 

"  When  Lili  found  that  she  could  reach  the 


Malbone.  13 

ceiling  from  Mr.  Malbone's  shoulder,"  said 
Emilia,  "  she  asked  no  more." 

"  Then  you  knew  the  pastor's  family  also, 
my  child,"  said  Aunt  Jane,  looking  at  her  kind 
ly  and  a  little  keenly. 

"  I  was  allowed  to  go  there  sometimes,"  she 
began,  timidly. 

"  To  meet  her  American  Cousin,"  interrupted 
Philip.  "  I  got  some  relaxation  in  the  rules  of 
the  school.  But,  Aunt  Jane,  you  have  told  us 
nothing  about  your  health." 

"  There  is  nothing  to  tell,"  she  answered.  "I 
should  like,  if  it  were  convenient,  to  be  a  little 
better.  But  in  this  life,  if  one  can  walk  across 
the  floor,  and  not  be  an  idiot,  it  is  something. 
That  is  all  I  aim  at." 

"  Is  n't  it  rather  tiresome  ?  "  said  Emilia,  as 
the  elder  lady  happened  to  look  at  her. 

"  Not  at  all,"  said  Aunt  Jane,  composedly. 
"  I  naturally  fall  back  into  happiness,  when 
left  to  myself." 

"  So  you  have  returned  to  the  house  of  your 
fathers,"  said  Philip.  "  I  hope  you  like  it." 

"  It  is  commonplace  in  one  respect,"  said 
Aunt  Jane.  "  General  Washington  once  slept 
here." 

"  Oh  !  "  said  Philip.  "  It  is  one  of  that  class 
of  houses  ? " 


14  Malbone. 

"  Yes,"  said  she.  "  There  is  not  a  village  in 
America  that  has  not  half  a  dozen  of  them, 
not  counting  those  where  he  only  breakfasted. 
Did  ever  man  sleep  like  that  man  ?  What 
else  could  he  ever  have  done  ?  Who  governed, 
I  wonder,  while  he  was  asleep  ?  How  he  must 
have  travelled !  The  swiftest  horse  could 
scarcely  have  carried  him  from  one  of  these 
houses  to  another." 

"  I  never  was  attached  to  the  memory  of 
Washington,"  meditated  Philip  ;  "but  I  always 
thought  it  was  the  pear-tree.  It  must  have 
been  that  he  was  such  a  very  unsettled  per 
son." 

"He  certainly  was  not  what  is  called  a  do 
mestic  character,"  said  Aunt  Jane. 

"  I  suppose  you  are,  Miss  Maxwell,"  said 
Philip.  "  Do  you  often  go  out  ? " 

"  Sometimes,  to  drive,"  said  Aunt  Jane. 
"Yesterday  I  went  shopping  with  Kate,  and 
sat  in  the  carriage  while  she  bought  under- 
sleeves  enough  for  a  centipede.  It  is  always 
so  with  that  child.  People  talk  about  the 
trouble  of  getting  a  daughter  ready  to  be  mar 
ried  ;  but  it  is  like  being  married  once  a  month 
to  live  with  her." 

"  I  wonder  that  you  take  her  to  drive  with 
yon,"  suggested  Philip,  sympathetically. 


Malbone.  \  5 

"  It  is  a  great  deal  worse  to  drive  without 
her,"  said  the  impetuous  lady.  "  She  is  the 
only  person  who  lets  me  enjoy  things,  and  now 
I  cannot  enjoy  them  in  her  absence.  Yester 
day  I  drove  alone  over  the  three  beaches,  and 
left  her  at  home  with  a  dress-maker.  Never 
did  I  see  so  many  lines  of  surf;  but  they  only 
seemed  to  me  like  some  of  Kate's  ball-dresses, 
with  the  prevailing  flounces,  six  deep.  I  was 
so  enraged  that  she  was  not  there,  I  wished  to 
cover  my  face  with  my  handkerchief.  By  the 
third  beach  I  was  ready  for  the  madhouse." 

"  Is  Oldport  a  pleasant  place  to  live  in  ? " 
asked  Emilia,  eagerly. 

"  It  is  amusing  in  the  summer,"  said  Aunt 
Jane,  "  though  the  society  is  nothing  but  a 
pack  of  visiting-cards.  In  winter  it  is  too  dull 
for  young  people,  and  only  suits  quiet  old 
women  like  me,  who  merely  live  here  to  keep 
the  Ten  Commandments  and  darn  their  stock 
ings." 

Meantime  the  children  were  aiming  at 
Emilia,  whose  butterfly  looks  amazed  and 
charmed  them,  but  who  evidently  did  not 
know  what  to  do  with  their  eager  affection. 

"  I  know  about  you,"  said  little  Helen  ;  "  I 
know  what  you  said  when  you  were  little." 


1 6  Malbone. 

"Did  I  say  anything?"  asked  Emilia,  care 
lessly. 

"Yes,"  replied  the  child,  and  began  to  re 
peat  the  oft-told  domestic  tradition  in  an 
accurate  way,  as  if  it  were  a  school  lesson. 
"  Once  you  had  been  naughty,  and  your  papa 
thought  it  his  duty  to  slap  you,  and  you 
cried ;  and  he  told  you  in  French,  because  he 
always  spoke  French  with  you,  that  he  did  not 
punish  you  for  his  own  pleasure.  Then  you 
stopped  crying,  and  asked,  '  Pour  le  plaisir  de 
qui  alors  ? '  That  means  '  For  whose  pleasure 
then  ? '  Hope  said  it  was  a  droll  question  for 
a  little  girl  to  ask." 

"I  do  not  think  it  was  Emilia  who  asked  that 
remarkable  question,  little  girl,"  said  Kate. 

"  I  dare  say  it  was,"  said  Emilia  ;  "  I  have 
been  asking  it  all  my  life."  Her  eyes  grew 
very  moist,  what  with  fatigue  and  excitement. 
But  just  then,  as  is  apt  to  happen  in  this  world, 
they  were  all  suddenly  recalled  from  tears  to 
tea,  and  the  children  smothered  their  curiosity 
in  strawberries  and  cream. 

They  sat  again  beside  the  western  door,  after 
tea.  The  young  moon  came  from  a  cloud  and 
dropped  a  broad  path  of  glory  upon  the  bay  ; 
a  black  yacht  glided  noiselessly  in,  and  an- 


M alb  one.  1 7 

chored  amid  this  tract  of  splendor.  The  shadow 
of  its  masts  was  on  the  luminous  surface,  while 
their  reflection  lay  at  a  different  angle,  and 
seemed  to  penetrate  far  below.  Then  the  de 
parting  steamer  went  flashing  across  this  bright 
realm  with  gorgeous  lustre  ;  its  red  and  green 
lights  were  doubled  in  the  paler  waves,  its  four 
reflected  chimneys  chased  each  other  among 
the  reflected  masts.  This  jewelled  wonder 
passing,  a  single  fishing-boat  drifted  silently 
by,  with  its  one  dark  sail ;  and  then  the  moon 
and  the  anchored  yacht  were  left  alone. 

Presently  some  of  the  luggage  came  from 
the  wharf.  Malbone  brought  out  presents  for 
everybody  ;  then  all  the  family  went  to  Europe 
in  photographs,  and  with  some  reluctance  came 
back  to  America  for  bed. 


1 8  Malbone. 


II. 

PLACE   AUX   DAMES! 

IN  every  town  there  is  one  young  maiden 
who  is  the  universal  favorite,  who  belongs 
to  all  sets  and  is  made  an  exception  to  all 
family  feuds,  who  is  the  confidante  of  all  girls 
and  the  adopted  sister  of  all  young  men,  up  to 
the  time  when  they  respectively  offer  them 
selves  to  her,  and  again  after  they  are  rejected. 
This  post  was  filled  in  Oldport,  in  those  days, 
by  my  cousin  Kate. 

Born  into  the  world  with  many  other  gifts, 
this  last  and  least  definable  gift  of  popularity 
was  added  to  complete  them  all.  Nobody  criti 
cised  her,  nobody  was  jealous  of  her,  her  very 
rivals  lent  her  their  new  music  and  their  lov 
ers  ;  and  her  own  discarded  wooers  always 
sought  her  to  be  a  .bridesmaid  when  they  mar 
ried  somebody  else. 

She  was  one  of  those  persons  who  seem  to 
have  come  into  the  world  well-dressed.  There 
was  an  atmosphere  of  elegance  around  her, 
like  a  costume  ;  every  attitude  implied  a  pres- 


Malbone.  19 

ence-chamber  or  a  ball-room.  The  girls  com 
plained  that  in  private  theatricals  no  combina 
tion  of  disguises  could  reduce  Kate  to  the 
ranks,  nor  give  her  the  "  make-up  "  of  a  wait 
ing-maid.  Yet  as  her  father  was  a  New  York 
merchant  of  the  precarious  or  spasmodic  de 
scription,  she  had  been  used  from  childhood  to 
the  wildest  fluctuations  of  wardrobe  ;  —  a  year 
of  Paris  dresses,  —  then  another  year  spent  in 
making  over  ancient  finery,  that  never  looked 
like  either  finery  or  antiquity  when  it  came 
from  her  magic  hands.  Without  a  particle  of 
vanity  or  fear,  secure  in  health  and  good-na 
ture  and  invariable  prettiness,  she  cared  little 
whether  the  appointed  means  of  grace  were 
ancient  silk  or  modern  muslin.  In  her  periods 
of  poverty,  she  made  no  secret  of  the  necessa 
ry  devices  ;  the  other  girls,  of  course,  guessed 
them,  but  her  lovers  never  did,  because  she 
always  told  them.  There  was  one  particular 
tarlatan  dress  of  hers  which  was  a  sort  of  local 
institution.  It  was  known  to  all  her  com 
panions,  like  the  State  House.  There  was  a 
report  that  she  had  first  worn  it  at  her  chris 
tening  ;  the  report  originated  with  herself. 
The  young  men  knew  that  she  was  going  to 
the  party  if  she  could  turn  that  pink  tarlatan 


2O  Malbotie. 

once  more ;  but  they  had  only  the  vaguest  im 
pression  what  a  tarlatan  was,  and  cared  little 
on  which  side  it  was  worn,  so  long  as  Kate  was 
inside. 

During  these  epochs  of  privation  her  life,  in 
respect  to  dress,  was  a  perpetual  Christmas-tree 
of  second-hand  gifts.  Wealthy  aunts  supplied 
her  with  cast-off  shoes  of  all  sizes,  from  two 
and  a  half  up  to  five,  and  she  used  them  all. 
She  was  reported  to  have  worn  one  straw  hat 
through  five  changes  of  fashion.  It  was  averred 
that,  when  square  crowns  were  in  vogue, 
she  flattened  it  over  a  tin  pan,  and  that,  when 
round  crowns  returned,  she  bent  it  on  the  bed 
post.  There  was  such  a  charm  in  her  way  of 
adapting  these  treasures,  that  the  other  girls 
liked  to  test  her  with  new  problems  in  the  way 
of  millinery  and  dress-making ;  millionnaire 
friends  implored  her  to  trim  their  hats,  and 
lent  her  their  own  things  in  order  to  learn  how 
to  wear  them.  This  applied  especially  to  cer 
tain  rich  cousins,  shy  and  studious  girls,  who 
adored  her,  and  to  whom  society  only  ceased 
to  be  alarming  when  the  brilliant  Kate  took 
them  under  her  wing,  and  graciously  accepted 
a  few  of  their  newest  feathers.  Well  might 
they  acquiesce,  for  she  stood  by  them  superbly, 


Malbone.  2 1 

and  her  most  favored  partners  found  no  way  to 
her  hand  so  sure  as  to  dance  systematically 
through  that  staid  sisterhood.  Dear,  sunshiny, 
gracious,  generous  Kate  !  —  who  has  ever  done 
justice  to  the  charm  given  to  this  grave  old 
world  by  the  presence  of  one  free-hearted  and 
joyous  girl  ? 

At  the  time  now  to  be  described,  however, 
Kate's  purse  was  well  filled  ;  and  if  she  wore 
only  second-best  finery,  it  was  because  she  had 
lent  her  very  best  to  somebody  else.  All  that 
her  doting  father  asked  was  to  pay  for  her 
dresses,  and  to  see  her  wear  them  ;  and  if  her 
friends  wore  a  part  of  them,  it  only  made 
necessary  a  larger  wardrobe,  and  more  varied 
and  pleasurable  shopping.  She  was  as  good 
a  manager  in  wealth  as  in  poverty,  wasted 
nothing,  took  exquisite  care  of  everything,  and 
saved  faithfully  for  some  one  else  all  that  was 
not  needed  for  her  own  pretty  person. 

Pretty  she  was  throughout,  from  the  parting 
of  her  jet-black  hair  to  the  high  instep  of  her 
slender  foot ;  a  glancing,  brilliant,  brunette 
beauty,  with  the  piquant  charm  of  perpetual 
spirits,  and  the  equipoise  of  a  perfectly  healthy 
nature.  She  was  altogether  graceful,  yet  she 
had  not  the  fresh,  free  grace  of  her  cousin 


22  Malbone. 

Hope,  who  was  lithe  and  strong  as  a  havv- 
thorne  spray  :  Kate's  was  the  narrower  grace 
of  culture  grown  hereditary,  an  in-door  ele 
gance  that  was  born  in  her,  and  of  which  danc 
ing-school  was  but  the  natural  development. 
You  could  not  picture  Hope  to  your  mind  in 
one  position  more  than  in  another ;  she  had 
an  endless  variety  of  easy  motion.  When  you 
thought  of  Kate,  you  remembered  precisely 
how  she  sat,  how  she  stood,  and  how  she 
walked.  That  was  all,  and  it  was  always  the 
same.  But  is  not  that  enough  ?  We  do  not 
ask  of  Mary  Stuart's  portrait  that  it  should 
represent  her  in  more  than  one  attitude,  and 
why  should  a  living  beauty  need  more  than 
two  or  three  ? 

Kate  was  betrothed  to  her  cousin  Harry, 
Hope's  brother,  and,  though  she  was  barely 
twenty,  they  had  seemed  to  appertain  to  each 
other  for  a  time  so  long  that  the  memory  of 
man  or  maiden  aunt  ran  not  to  the  contrary. 
She  always  declared,  indeed,  that  they  were 
born  married,  and  that  their  wedding-day 
would  seem  like  a  silver  wedding.  Harry  was 
quiet,  unobtrusive,  and  manly.  He  might  seem 
commonplace  at  first  beside  the  brilliant  Kate 
and  his  more  gifted  sister ;  but  thorough  man- 


Malbone.  23 

hood  is  never  commonplace,  and  he  was  a 
person  to  whom  one  could  anchor.  His  strong, 
steadfast  physique  was  the  type  of  his  whole 
nature  ;  when  he  came  into  the  room,  you  felt 
as  if  a  good  many  people  had  been  added  to 
the  company.  He  made  steady  progress  in 
his  profession  of  the  law,  through  sheer 
worth  ;  he  never  dazzled,  but  he  led.  His 
type  was  pure  Saxon,  with  short,  curling  hair, 
blue  eyes,  and  thin,  fair  skin,  to  which  the 
color  readily  mounted.  Up  to  a  certain  point 
he  was  imperturbably  patient  and  amiable, 
but,  when  overtaxed,  was  fiery  and  impetuous 
for  a  single  instant,  and  no  more.  It  seemed 
as  if  a  sudden  flash  of  anger  went  over  him, 
like  the  flash  that  glides  along  the  glutinous 
stem  of  the  fraxinella,  when  you  touch  it  with 
a  candle  ;  the  next  moment  it  had  utterly 
vanished,  and  was  forgotten  as  if  it  had  never 
been. 

Kate's  love  for  her  lover  was  one  of  those 
healthy  and  assured  ties  that  often  outlast 
the  ardors  of  more  passionate  natures.  For 
other  temperaments  it  might  have  been  inad 
equate  ;  but  theirs  matched  perfectly,  and  it 
was  all  sufficient  for  them.  If  there  was 
within  Kate's  range  a  more  heroic  and  ar- 


24  Malbone. 

dent  emotion  than  that  inspired  by  Harry,  it 
was  put  forth  toward  Hope.  This  was  her 
idolatry  ;  she  always  said  that  it  was  fortunate 
Hope  was  Hal's  sister,  or  she  should  have  felt 
it  her  duty  to  give  them  to  each  other,  and 
not  die  till  the  wedding  was  accomplished. 
Harry  shared  this  adoration  to  quite  a  rea 
sonable  extent,  for  a  brother  ;  but  his  admira 
tion  for  Philip  Malbone  was  one  that  Kate 
did  not  quite  share.  Harry's  quieter  mood 
had  been  dazzled  from  childhood  by  Philip, 
who  had  always  been  a  privileged  guest  in 
the  household.  Kate's  clear,  penetrating,  buoy- 
nnt  nature  had  divined  Phil's  weaknesses,  and 
had  sometimes  laughed  at  them,  even  from  her 
childhood  ;  though  she  did  not  dislike  him, 
for  she  did  not  dislike  anybody.  But  Harry 
was  magnetized  by  him  very  much  as  women 
were  ;  believed  him  true,  because  he  was  ten 
der,  and  called  him  only  fastidious  where  Kate 
called  him  lazy. 

Kate  was  spending  that  summer  with  her 
aunt  Jane,  whose  especial  pet  and  pride  she 
was.  Hope  was  spending  there  the  summer 
vacation  of  a  Normal  School  in  which  she  had 
just  become  a  teacher.  Her  father  had  shared 
in  the  family  ups  and  downs,  but  had  finally 


M alb  one.  25 

stayed  down,  while  the  rest  had  remained  up. 
Fortunately,  his  elder  children  were  indifferent 
to  this,  and  indeed  rather  preferred  it  ;  it  was 
a  tradition  that  Hope  had  expressed  the  wish, 
when  a  child,  that  her  father  might  lose  his 
property,  so  that  she  could  become  a  teacher. 
As  for  Harry,  he  infinitely  preferred  the  drudg 
ery  of  a  law  office  to  that  of  a  gentleman  of 
leisure  ;  and  as  for  their  step-mother,  it  turned 
out,  when  she  was  left  a  widow,  that  she  had 
secured  for  herself  and  Emilia  whatever  prop 
erty  remained,  so  that  she  suffered  only  the 
delightful  need  of  living  in  Europe  for  econ 
omy. 

The  elder  brother  and  sister  had  alike  that 
fine  physical  vigor  which  New  England  is  now 
developing,  just  in  time  to  save  it  from  decay. 


blonde  than  her  brother ;  she  was  a  little  taller, 
and  of  more  commanding  presence,  with  a  pe 
culiarly  noble  carriage  of  the  shoulders.  Her 
brow  was  sometimes  criticised  as  being  a  little 
too  full  for  a  woman  ;  but  her  nose  was  straight, 
her  mouth  and  teeth  beautiful,  and  her  profile 
almost  perfect.  Her  complexion  had  lost  by 
out-door  life  something  of  its  delicacy,  but  had 
gained  a  freshness  and  firmness  that  no  sun- 


26  Malbone. 

light  could  impair.  She  had  that  wealth  of 
hair  which  young  girls  find  the  most  enviable 
point  of  beauty  in  each  other.  Hers  reached 
below  her  knees,  when  loosened,  or  else  lay 
coiled,  in  munificent  braids  of  gold,  full  of 
sparkling  lights  and  contrasted  shadows,  upon 
her  queenly  head. 

Her  eyes  were  much  darker  than  her  hair, 
and  had  a  way  of  opening  naively  and  sud 
denly,  with  a  perfectly  infantine  expression,  as 
if  she  at  that  moment  saw  the  sunlight  for  the 
first  time.  Her  long  lashes  were  somewhat 
like  Emilia's,  and  she  had  the  same  deeply 
curved  eyebrows  ;  in  no  other  point  was  there 
a  shade  of  resemblance  between  the  half- 
sisters.  As  compared  with  Kate,  Hope  showed 
a  more  abundant  physical  life  ;  there  was  more 
blood  in  her  ;  she  had  ampler  outlines,  and 
health  more  absolutely  unvaried,  for  she  had 
yet  to  know  the  experience  of  a  day's  illness. 
Kate  seemed  born  to  tread  upon  a  Brussels 
carpet,  and  Hope  on  the  softer  luxury  of  the 
forest  floor.  Out  of  doors  her  vigor  became  a 
sort  of  ecstasy,  and  she  walked  the  earth  with 
a  jubilee  of  the  senses,  such  as  Browning  at 
tributes  to  his  Saul. 

This  inexhaustible  freshness  of  physical  or- 


Mai  bone.  27 

ganization  seemed  to  open  the  windows  of 
her  soul,  and  make  for  her  a  new  heaven 
and  earth  every  day.  It  gave  also  a  pecu 
liar  and  almost  embarrassing  directness  to 
her  mental  processes,  and  suggested  in  them 
a  sort  of  final  and  absolute  value,  as  if  truth 
had  for  the  first  time  found  a  perfectly  trans 
lucent  medium.  It  was  not  so  much  that 
she  said  rare  things,  but  her  very  silence  was 
eloquent,  and  there  was  a  great  deal  of  it. 
Her  girlhood  had  in  it  a  certain  dignity  as  of  a 
virgin  priestess  or  sibyl.  Yet  her  hearty  sym 
pathies  and  her  healthy  energy  made  her  at 
home  in  daily  life,  and  in  a  democratic  society. 
To  Kate,  for  instance,  she  was  a  necessity  of 
existence,  like  light  or  air.  Kate's  nature  was 
limited  ;  part  of  her  graceful  equipoise  was 
narrowness.  Hope  was  capable  of  far  more 
self-abandonment  to  a  controlling  emotion, 
and,  if  she  ever  erred,  would  err  more  widely, 
for  it  would  be  because  the  whole  power  of 
her  conscience  \vas  misdirected.  "  Once  let 
her  take  wrong  for  right,"  said  Aunt  Jane, 
"  and  stop  her  if  you  can  ;  these  born  saints 
give  a  great  deal  more  trouble  than  children 
of  this  world,  like  my  Kate."  Yet  in  daily 
life  Hope  yielded  to  her  cousin  nine  times  out 


28  Mai  bone. 

of  ten  ;  but  the  tenth  time  was  the  key  to  the 
situation.  Hope  loved  Kate  devotedly  ;  but 
Kate  believed  in  her  as  the  hunted  fugitive 
believes  in  the  north  star. 

To  these  maidens,  thus  united,  came  Emilia 
home  from  Europe.  /The  father  of  Harry  and 
Hope  had  been  lured  into  a  second  marriage 
with  Emilia's  mother,  a  charming  and  unscru 
pulous  woman,  born  with  an  American  body 
and  a  French  soul.  She  having  once  won  him 
to  Paris,  held  him  there  life-long,  and  kept  her 
step,-children  at  a  safe  distance.^  She  arranged 
that,  even  after  her  own  death,  her  daughter 
should  still  remain  abroad  for  education  ;  nor 
was  Emilia  ordered  back  until  she  brought 
down  some  scandal  by  a  romantic  attempt 
to  elope  from  boarding-school  with  a  Swiss 
servant.  It  was  by  weaning  her  heart  from 
this  man  that  Philip  Malbone  had  earned  the 
thanks  of  the  whole  household  during  his 
hasty  flight  through  Europe.  He  possessed 
some  skill  in  withdrawing  the  female  heart 
from  an  undesirable  attachment,  though  it  was 
apt  to  be  done  by  substituting  another.  It 
was  fortunate  that,  in  this  case,  no  fears  could 
be  entertained.  Since  his  engagement  Philip 
had  not  permitted  himself  so  much  as  a  flirta- 


Malbone.  29 

tion  ;  he  and  Hope  were  to  be  married  soon  ; 
he  loved  and  admired  her  heartily,  and  had  an 
indifference  to  her  want  of  fortune  that  was 
quite  amazing,  when  we  consider  that  he  had 
a  fortune  of  his  own. 


30  Malbone. 

III. 

A  DRIVE   ON   THE  AVENUE. 

/^vLDPORT  AVENUE  is  a  place  where  a 
V-/  great  many  carriages  may  be  seen  driving 
so  slowly  that  they  might  almost  be  photo 
graphed  without  halting,  and  where  their  occu 
pants  already  wear  the  dismal  expression  which 
befits  that  process.  In  these  fine  vehicles,  fol 
lowing  each  other  in  an  endless  file,  one  sees 
such  faces  as  used  to  be  exhibited  in  ball-rooms 
during  the  performance  of  quadrilles,  before 
round  dances  came  in,  —  faces  marked  by  the 
renunciation  of  all  human  joy.  Sometimes  a 
faint  suspicion  suggests  itself  on  the  Avenue, 
that  these  torpid  countenances  might  be  roused 
to  life,  in  case  some  horse  should  run  away. 
But  that  one  chance  never  occurs ;  the  riders 
may  not  yet  be  toned  down  into  perfect  breed 
ing,  but  the  horses  are.  I  do  not  know  what 
could  ever  break  the  gloom  of  this  joyless  pro 
cession,  were  it  not  that  youth  and  beauty 
are  always  in  fashion,  and  one  sometimes 
meets  an  exceptional  barouche  full  of  boys 


Malbone.  3 1 

and  girls,  who  could  absolutely  be  no  happier 
if  they  were  a  thousand  miles  away  from  the 
best  society.  And  such  a  joyous  company 
were  our  four  youths  and  maidens  when  they 
went  to  drive  that  day,  Emilia  being  left  at 
home  to  rest  after  the  fatigues  of  the  voyage. 
"  What  beautiful  horses  !  "  was  Hope's  first 
exclamation.  "  What  grave  people  !  "  was  her 
second. 

"  What  though  in  solemn  silence  all 
Roll  round  —  " 

quoted  Philip. 

"  Hope  is  thinking,"  said  Harry,  "  whether 
'in  reason's  ear  they  all  rejoice.'  " 

"  How  could  you  know  that  ? "  said  she, 
opening  her  eyes. 

"  One  thing  always  strikes  me,"  said  Kate. 
"  The  sentence  of  stupefaction  does  not  seem 
to  be  enforced  till  after  five-and-twenty.  That 
young  lady  we  just  met  looked  quite  lively 
and  juvenile  last  year,  I  remember,  and  now 
she  has  graduated  into  a  dowager." 

"Like  little  Helen's  kitten,"  said  Philip, 
k"  She  justly  remarks  that,  since  I  saw  it  last, 
it  is  all  spoiled  into  a  great  big  cat." 

"Those  must  be  snobs,"  said  Harry,  as  a 
carriage  with  unusually  gorgeous  liveries  rolled 
by. 


32  Malbone. 

"  I  suppose  so,"  said  Malbone,  indifferently. 
"  In  Oldport  we  call  all  new-comers  snobs, 
you  know,  till  they  have  invited  us  to  their 
grand  ball.  Then  we  go  to  it,  and  afterwards 
speak  well  of  them,  and  only  abuse  their 
wine." 

"  How  do  you  know  them  for  new-comers  ?" 
asked  Hope,  looking  after  the  carriage. 

"  By  their  improperly  intelligent  expres 
sion,"  returned  Phil.  "They  look  around 
them  as  you  do,  my  child,  with  the  air  of 
wide-awake  curiosity  which  marks  the  Ameri 
can  traveller.  That  is  out  of  place  here.  The 
Avenue  abhors  everything  but  a  vacuum." 

"  I  never  can  find  out,"  continued  Hope, 
"  how  people  recognize  each  other  here.  They 
do  not  look  at  each  other,  unless  they  know 
each  other :  and  how  are  they  to  know  if  they 
know,  unless  they  look  first  ?" 

"  It  seems  an  embarrassment,"  said  Malbone. 
"  But  it  is  supposed  that  fashion  perforates  the 
eyelids  and  looks  through.  If  you  attempt  it 
in  any  other  way,  you  are  lost.  Newly  arrived 
people  look  about  them,  and,  the  more  new^ 
wealth  they  have,  the  more  they  gaze.  The 
men  are  uneasy  behind  their  recently  educated 
mustaches,  and  the  women  hold  their  parasols 


Malbone,  3  3 

with  trembling  hands.  It  takes  two  years  to 
learn  to  drive  on  the  Avenue.  Come  again 
next  summer,  and  you  will  see  in  those 
same  carriages  faces  of  remote  supercilious 
ness,  that  suggest  generations  of  gout  and 
ancestors." 

"  What  a  pity  one  feels,"  said  Harry,  "  for 
these  people  who  still  suffer  from  lingering 
modesty,  and  need  a  master  to  teach  them  to 
be  insolent  ! " 

"They  learn  it  soon  enough,"  said  Kate. 
"  Philip  is  right.  Fashion  lies  in  the  eye. 
People  fix  their  own  position  by  the  way  they 
don't  look  at  you." 

"  There  is  a  certain  indifference  of  manner," 
philosophized  Malbone,  "  before  which  ingenu 
ous  youth  is  crushed.  I  may  know  that  a 
"man  can  hardly  read  or  write,  and  that  his 
father  was  a  ragpicker  till  one  day  he  picked 
up  bank-notes  for  a  million.  No  matter.  If 
he  does  not  take  the  trouble  to  look  at  me, 
I  must  look  reverentially  at  him." 

"  Here  is  somebody  who  will  look  at  Hope," 
*  cried  Kate,  suddenly. 

A  carriage  passed,  bearing  a  young  lady 
with  fair  hair,  and  a  keen,  bright  look,  talking 
eagerly  to  a  small  and  quiet  youth  beside  her. 


34  Malbone. 

Her  face  brightened  still  more  as  she  caught 
the  eye  of  Hope,  whose  face  lighted  up  in  re 
turn,  and  who  then  sank  back  with  a  sort  of 
sigh  of  relief,  as  if  she  had  at  last  seen  some 
body  she  cared  for.  The  lady  waved  an  un 
gloved  hand,  and  drove  by. 

"  Who  is  that  ? "  asked  Philip,  eagerly.  He 
was  used  to  knowing  every  one. 

"  Hope's  pet,"  said  Kate,  "  and  she  who  pets 
Hope,  Lady  Antwerp." 

"Is  it  possible?"  said  Malbone.  "That 
young  creature  ?  I  fancied  her  ladyship  in 
spectacles,  with  little  side  curls.  Men  speak 
of  her  with  such  dismay." 

"  Of  course,"  said  Kate,  "  she  asks  them 
sensible  questions." 

"That  is  bad,"  admitted  Philip.  "Nothing 
exasperates  fashionable  Americans  like  a  really 
intelligent  foreigner.  They  feel  as  Sydney 
Smith  says  the  English  clergy  felt  about  Eliza 
beth  Fry  ;,  she  disturbs  their  repose,  and  gives 
rise  to  distressing  comparisons,  —  they  long 
to  burn  her  alive.  It  is  not  their  notion  of  a 
countess.") 

"  I  am  sure  it  was  not  mine,"  said  Hope  ;  "  I 
can  hardly  remember  that  she  is  one  ;  I  only 
know  that  I  like  her,  she  is  so  simple  and  in- 


Malbone.  35 

telligent.  She  might  be  a  girl  from  a  Normal 
School. 

"  It  is  because  you  are  just  that,"  said  Kate, 
"  that  she  likes  you.  She  came  here  suppos 
ing  that  we  had  all  been  at  such  schools. 
Then  she  complained  of  us,  —  us  girls  in  what 
we  call  good  society,  I  mean,  —  because,  as  she 
more  than  hinted,  we  did  not  seem  to  know 
anything." 

"  Some  of  the  mothers  were  angry,"  said 
Hope.  "  But  Aunt  Jane  told  her  that  it  was 
perfectly  true,  and  that  her  ladyship  had  not 
yet  seen  the  best-educated  girls  in  America, 
who  were  generally  the  daughters  of  old  minis 
ters  and  well-to-do  shopkeepers  in  small  New 
England  towns,  Aunt  Jane  said." 

"  Yes,"  said  Kate,  "  she  said  that  the  best 
of  those  girls  went  to  High  Schools  and 
Normal  Schools,  and  learned  things  thor 
oughly,  you  know ;  but  that  we  were  only 
taught  at  boarding-schools  and  by  governesses, 
and  came  out  at  eighteen,  and  what  could  we 
know  ?  Then  came  Hope,  who  had  been  at 
those  schools,  and  was  the  child  of  refined 
people  too,  and  Lady  Antwerp  was  perfectly 
satisfied." 

"  Especially,"  said  Hope,  "  when  Aunt  Jane 


36  Ma/bone. 

told  her  that,  after  all,  schools  did  not  do  very 
much  good,  for  if  people  were  born  stupid 
they  only  became  more  tiresome  by  schooling. 
She  said  that  she  had  forgotten  all  she  learned 
at  school  except  the  boundaries  of  ancient 
Cappadocia." 

Aunt  Jane's  fearless  sayings  always  passed 
current  among  her  nieces  ;  and  they  drove  on, 
Hope  not  being  lowered  in  Philip's  estimation, 
nor  raised  in  her  own,  by  being  the  pet  of  a 
passing  countess. 

Who  would  not  be  charmed  (he  thought  to 
himself)  by  this  noble  girl,  who  walks  the  earth 
fresh  and  strong  as  a  Greek  goddess,  pure  as 
Diana,  stately  as  Juno  ?  She  belongs  to  the 
unspoiled  womanhood  of  another  age,  and  is 
wasted  among  these  dolls  and  butterflies. 

He  looked  at  her.  She  sat  erect  and  grace 
ful,  unable  to  droop  into  the  debility  of  fash 
ionable  reclining,  —  her  breezy  hair  lifted  a 
little  by  the  soft  wind,  her  face  flushed,  her 
full  brown  eyes  looking  eagerly  about,  her 
mouth  smiling  happily.  To  be  with  those  she 
loved  best,  and  to  be  driving  over  the  beauti 
ful  earth  !  She  was  so  happy  that  no  mob  of 
fashionables  could  have  lessened  her  enjoy 
ment,  or  made  her  for  a  moment  conscious 


Malbone.  37 

that  anybody  looked  at  her.  The  brilliant 
equipages  which  they  met  each  moment  were 
not  wholly  uninteresting  even  to  her,  for  her 
affections  went  forth  to  some  of  the  riders 
and  to  all  the  horses.  She  was  as  well  con 
tented  at  that  moment,  on  the  glittering  Ave 
nue,  as  if  they  had  all  been  riding  home  through 
country  lanes,  and  in  constant  peril  of  being 
jolted  out  among  the  whortleberry-bushes. 

Her  face  brightened  yet  more  as  they  met 
a  carriage  containing  a  graceful  lady  dressed 
with  that  exquisiteness  of  taste  that  charms 
both  man  and  woman,  even  if  no  man  can 
analyze  and  no  woman  rival  its  effect.  She 
had  a  perfectly  high-bred  look,  and  an 'eye  that 
in  an  instant  would  calculate  one's  ancestors 
as  far  back  as  Nebuchadnezzar,  and  bow  to 
them  all  together.  She  smiled  good-naturedly 
on  Hope,  and  kissed  her  hand  to  Kate. 

"  So,  Hope,"  said  Philip,  "  you  are  bent  on 
teaching  music  to  Mrs.  Meredith's  children." 

"  Indeed  I  am  !  "  said  Hope,  eagerly.  "  O 
Philip,  I  shall  enjoy  it  so  !  I  do  not  care  so 
very  much  about  her,  but  she  has  dear  little 
girls.  And  you  know  I  am  a  born  drudge. 
I  have  not  been  working  hard  enough  to  en 
joy  an  entire  vacation,  but  I  shall  be  so  very 


38  Mai  bone. 

happy  here  if  I  can  have  some  real  work  for 
an  hour  or  two  every  other  day." 

"  Hope,"  said  Philip,  gravely,  "  look  steadily 
at  these  people  whom  we  are  meeting,  and 
reflect.  Should  you  like  to  have  them  say, 
'There  goes  Mrs.  Meredith's  music  teacher'?" 

"  Why  not  ? "  said  Hope,  with  surprise.  " The 
children  are  young,  and  it  is  not  very  pre 
sumptuous.  I  ought  to  know  enough  for  that." 

Malbone  looked  at  Kate,  who  smiled  with 
delight,  and  put  her  hand  on  that  of  Hope. 
Indeed,  she  kept  it  there  so  long  that  one  or 
two  passing  ladies  stopped  their  salutations  in 
mid  career,  and  actually  looked  after  them  in 
amazement  at  their  attitude,  as  who  should 
say,  "What  a  very  mixed  society ! " 

So  they  drove  on,  —  meeting  four-in-hands, 
and  tandems,  and  donkey-carts,  and  a  goat- 
cart,  and  basket-wagons  driven  by  pretty  girls, 
with  uncomfortable  youths  in  or  out  of  livery 
behind.  They  met,  had  they  but  known  it, 
many  who  were  aiming  at  notoriety,  and  some 
who  had  it  ;  many  who  looked  contented  with 
their  lot,  and  some  who  actually  were  so. 
They  met  some  who  put  on  courtesy  and 
grace  with  their  kid  gloves,  and  laid  away 
those  virtues  in  their  glove-boxes  afterwards ; 


Malbone.  39 

while  to  others  the  mere  consciousness  of  kid 
gloves  brought  uneasiness,  redness  of  the  face, 
and  a  general  impression  of  being  all  made  of 
hands.  They  met  the  four  white  horses  of 
an  ex-harness-maker,  and  the  superb  harnesses 
of  an  ex-horse-dealer.  Behind  these  came  the 
gayest  and  most  plebeian  equipage  of  all,  a 
party  of  journeymen  carpenters  returning 
from  their  work  in  a  four-horse  wagon.  Their 
only  fit  compeers  were  an  Italian  opera-troupe, 
who  were  chatting  and  gesticulating  on  the 
piazza,  of  the  great  hotel,  and  planning,  amid 
jest  and  laughter,  their  future  campaigns. 
Their  work  seemed  like  play,  while  the  play 
around  them  seemed  like  work.  Indeed,  most 
people  on  the  Avenue  seemed  to  be  happy  in 
inverse  ratio  to  their  income  list. 

As  our  youths  and  maidens  passed  the  hotel, 
a  group  of  French  naval  officers  strolled  forth, 
some  of  whom  had  a  good  deal  of  inexplicable 
gold  lace  dangling  in  festoons  from  their 
shoulders,  —  "  topsail  halyards  "  the  American 
midshipmen  called  them.  Philip  looked  hard 
at  one  of  these  gentlemen. 

"  I  have  seen  that  young  fellow  before," 
said  he,  "  or  his  twin  brother.  But  who  can 
swear  to  the  personal  identity  of  a  French 
man  ? " 


4O  Malbone. 

IV. 

V 

AUNT  JANE  DEFINES  HER  POSITION. 

THE  next  morning  had  that  luminous  morn 
ing  haze,  not  quite  dense  enough  to  be 
called  a  fog,  which  is  often  so  lovely  in  Old- 
port.  It  was  perfectly  still ;  the  tide  swelled 
and  swelled  till  it  touched  the  edge  of  the  green 
lawn  behind  the  house,  and  seemed  ready  to 
submerge  the  slender  pier ;  the  water  looked 
at  first  like  glass,  till  closer  gaze  revealed  long 
sinuous  undulations,  as  if  from  unseen  water- 
snakes  beneath.  A  few  rags  of  storm-cloud 
lay  over  the  half-seen  hills  beyond  the  bay,  and 
behind  them  came  little  mutterings  of  thunder, 
now  here,  now  there/as  if  some  wild  creature 
were  roaming  up  and  down,  dissatisfied,  in  the 
shelter  of  the  clouds.  The  pale  haze  extended 
into  the  foreground,  and  half  veiled  the  schoon 
ers  that  lay  at  anchor  with  their  sails  up.  It 
was  sultry,  and  there  was  something  in  the  at 
mosphere  that  at  once  threatened  and  soothed. 
Sometimes  a  few  drops  dimpled  the  water  and 
then  ceased ;  the  muttering  creature  in  the 


Malbone.  41 

sky  moved  north  ward  and  grew  still.  It  was  a 
day  when  every  one  would  be  tempted  to  go 
out  rowing,  but  when  only  lovers  would  go. 
Philip  and  Hope  went. 

Kate  and  Harry,  meanwhile,  awaited  their 
opportunity  to  go  in  and  visit  Aunt  Jane.  This 
was  a  thing  that  never  could  be  done  till  near 
noon,  because  that  dear  lady  was  very  deliber 
ate  in  her  morning  habits,  and  always  averred 
that  she  had  never  seen  the  sun  rise  except  in 
a  panorama.  She  hated  to  be  hurried  in  dress 
ing,  too ;  for  she  was  accustomed  to  say  that 
she  must  have  leisure  to  understand  herself, 
and  this  was  clearly  an  affair  of  time. 

But  she  was  never  more  charming  than  when, 
after  dressing  and  breakfasting  in  seclusion, 
and  then  vigilantly  watching  her  handmaiden 
through  the  necessary  dustings  and  arrange 
ments,  she  sat  at  last,  with  her  affairs  in  order, 
to  await  events.  Every  day  she  expected 
something  entirely  new  to  happen,  and  was 
never  disappointed.  For  she  herself  always 
happened,  if  nothing  else  did  ;  she  could  no 
more  repeat  herself  than  the  sunrise  can  ;  and 
the  liveliest  visitor  always  carried  away  some 
thing  fresher  and  more  remarkable  than  he 
brought. 


42  Malbone. 

Her  book  that  morning  had  displeased  her, 
and  she  was  boiling  with  indignation  against 
its  author. 

"  I  am  reading  a  book  so  dry,"  she  said,  "  it 
makes  me  cough.  No  wonder  there  was  a 
drought  last  summer.  It  was  printed  then. 
Worcester's  Geography  seems  in  my  memory 
as  fascinating  as  Shakespeare,  when  I  look 
back  upon  it  from  this  book.  How  can  a  man 
write  such  a  thing  and  live  ? " 

"  Perhaps  he  lived  by  writing  it,"  said  Kate. 

"  Perhaps  it  was  the  best  he  could  do,"  added 
the  more  literal  Harry. 

"  It  certainly  was  not  the  best  he  could  do, 
for  he  might  have  died,  —  died  instead  of  dried. 
O,  I  should  like  to  prick  that  man  with  some 
thing  sharp,  and  see  if  sawdust  did  not  run  out 
of  him  !  Kate,  ask  the  bookseller  to  let  me 
know  if  he  ever  really  dies,  and  then  life  may 
seem  fresh  again." 

"  What  is  it  ?  "  asked  Kate. 

"  Somebody's  memoirs,"  said  Aunt  Jane. 
"  Was  there  no  man  left  worth  writing  about, 
that  they  should  make  a  biography  about  this 
one  ?  It  is  like  a  life  of  Napoleon  with  all  the 
battles  left  out.  They  are  conceited  enough  to 
put  his  age  in  the  upper  corner  of  each  page 
too,  as  if  anybody  cared  how  old  he  was." 


Malbone.  43 

"  Such  pretty  covers  !  "  said  Kate.  "  It  is 
too  bad." 

"  Yes,"  said  Aunt  Jane.  "  I  mean  to  send 
them  back  and  have  new  leaves  put  in.  These 
are  so  wretched,  there  is  not  a  teakettle  in  the 
land  so  insignificant  that  it  would  boil  over 
them.  Don't  let  us  talk  any  more  about  it. 
Have  Philip  and  Hope  gone  out  upon  the 
water  ? " 

"Yes,  dear,"  said  Kate.  "Did  Ruth  tell 
you  ?  " 

"  When  did  that  aimless  infant  ever  tell 
anything  ? " 

"  Then  how  did  you  know  it  ? " 

"  If  I  waited  for  knowledge  till  that  sweet- 
tempered  parrot  chose  to  tell  me,"  Aunt  Jane 
went  on,  "  I  should  be  even  more  foolish  than 
I  am." 

"  Then  how  did  you  know  ? " 

"  Of  course  I  heard  the  boat  hauled  down, 
and  of  course  I  knew  that  none  but  lovers 
would  go  out  just  before  a  thunder-storm. 
Then  you  and  Harry  came  in,  and  I  knew  it 
was  the  others." 

"  Aunt  Jane,"  said  Kate,  "  you  divine  every 
thing  :  what  a  brain  you  have  ! " 

"  Brain !  it  is  nothing  but  a  collection  of 


44  Malbone, 

shreds,  like  a  little  girl's  work-basket,  —  a  scrap 
of  blue  silk  and  a  bit  of  white  muslin." 

"  Now  she  is  fishing  for  compliments,"  said 
Kate,  "  and  she  shall  have  one.  She  was  very 
sweet  and  good  to  Philip  last  night." 

"  I  know  it,"  said  Aunt  Jane,  with  a  groan. 
"  I  waked  in  the  night  and  thought  about  it. 
I  was  awake  a  great  deal  last  night.  I  have 
heard  cocks  crowing  all  my  life,  but  I  never 
knew  what  that  creature  could  accomplish  be 
fore.  So  I  lay  and  thought  how  good  and  for 
giving  I  was  ;  it  was  quite  distressing." 

"  Remorse  ?  "  said  Kate. 

"  Yes,  indeed.  I  hate  to  be  a  saint  all  the 
time.  There  ought  to  be  vacations.  Instead 
of  suffering  from  a  bad  conscience,  I  suffer 
from  a  good  one." 

"  It  was  no  merit  of  yours,  aunt,"  put  in 
Harry.  "Who  was  ever  more  agreeable  and 
lovable  than  Malbone  last  night  ? " 

"  Lovable  !  "  burst  out  Aunt  Jane,  who  never 
could  be  managed  or  manipulated  by  anybody 
but  Kate,  and  who  often  rebelled  against  Har 
ry's  blunt  assertions.  "  Of  course  he  is  lova 
ble,  and  that  is  why  I  dislike  him.  His  father 
was  so  before  him.  That  is  the  worst  of  it.  I 
never  in  my  life  saw  any  harm  done  by  a  vil- 


Malbone.  45 

lain  ;  I  wish  I  could.  All  the  mischief  in  this 
world  is  done  by  lovable  people.  Thank 
Heaven,  nobody  ever  dared  to  call  me  lova 
ble  !  " 

"  I  should  like  to  see  any  one  dare  call  you 
anything  else,  —  you  clear,  old,  soft-hearted 
darling  !  "  interposed  Kate. 

"  But,  aunt,"  persisted  Harry,  "  if  you  only 
knew  what  the  mass  of  young  men  are  —  " 

"  Don't  I  ?"  interrupted  the  impetuous  lady. 
"  What  is  there  that  is  not  known  to  any 
woman  who  has  common  sense,  and  eyes 
enough  to  look  out  of  a  window  ? " 

"  If  you  only  knew,"   Harry  went  on,  "  how 
superior  Phil  Malbone  is,  in  his  whole  tone, 
to  any  fellow  of  my  acquaintance." 

"  Lord  help  the  rest ! "  she  answered. 
"  Philip  has  a  sort  of  refinement  instead  of 
principles,  and  a  heart  instead  of  a  conscience, 
— just  heart  enough  to  keep  himself  happy 
and  everybody  else  miserable." 

"Do  you  mean  to  say,"  asked  the  obstinate 
Hal,  "  that  there  is  no  difference  between  re 
finement  and  coarseness  ? " 

"  Yes,  there  is,"  she  said. 

"  Well,  which  is  best  ? " 

"Coarseness  is  safer  by  a  great  deal,"  said 


46  Malbone. 

Aunt  Jane,  "  in  the  hands  of  a  man  like 
Philip.  What  harm  can  that  swearing  coach 
man  do,  I  should  like  to  know,  in  the  street 
yonder  ?  To  be  sure  it  is  very  unpleasant, 
and  I  wonder  they  let  people  swear  so,  except, 
perhaps,  in  waste  places  outside  the  town  ; 
but  that  is  his  way  of  expressing  himself,  and 
he  only  frightens  people,  after  all." 

"  Which  Philip  does  not,"  said  Hal. 

"  Exactly.  That  is  the  danger.  He  fright 
ens  nobody,  not  even  himself,  when  he  ought 
to  wear  a  label  round  his  neck  marked  '  Dan 
gerous,'  such  as  they  have  at  other  place^ 
where  it  is  slippery  and  brittle.  When  he  i > 
here,  I  keep  saying  to  myself,  '  Too  *mooth, 
too  smooth  ! ' ' 

"Aunt  Jane,"  said  Harry,  gravely,  "  I  know 
Malbone  very  well,  and  I  never  knew  any  man 
whom  it  was  more  unjust  to  call  a  hypocrite  ?" 

"Did  I  say  he  was  a  hypocrite?"  she  cried. 
"  He  is  worse  than  that ;  at  least,  more  really 
dangerous.  It  is  these  high-strung  sentimen 
talists  who  do  all  the  mischief;  who  play  on 
their  own  lovely  emotions,  forsooth,  till  they 
wear  out  those  fine  fiddlestrings,  and  then 
have  nothing  left  but  the  flesh  and  the  D. 
Don't  tell  me  !  " 


Malbone.  47 

"  Do  stop,  auntie,"  interposed  Kate,  quite 
alarmed,  "  you  are  really  worse  than  a  coach 
man.  You  are  growing  very  profane  indeed." 

"  I  have  a  much  harder  time  than  any 
coachman,  Kate,"  retorted  the  injured  lady. 
"  Nobody  tries  to  stop  him,  and  you  are  always 
hushing  me  up." 

"Hushing  you  up,  darling?"  said  Kate. 
"  When  we  only  spoil  you  by  praising  and 
quoting  everything  you  say." 

"  Only  when  it  amuses  you,"  said  Aunt 
Jane.  "  So  long  as  I  sit  and  cry  my  eyes  out 
over  a  book,  you  all  love  me,  and  when  I  talk 
nonsense,  you  are  ready  to  encourage  it ; 
but  when  I  begin  to  utter  a  little  sense,  you 
all  want  to  silence  me,  or  else  run  out  of  the 
room  !  Yesterday  I  read  about  a  newspaper 
somewhere,  called  the  '  Daily  Evening  Voice ' ; 
I  wish  you  would  allow  me  a  daily  morning 
voice." 

"Do  not  interfere,  Kate,"  said  Hal.  "Aunt 
Jane  and  I  only  wish  to  understand  each 
other." 

"  I  am  sure  we  don't,"  said  Aunt  Jane ; 
"  I  have  no  desire  to  understand  you,  and  you 
never  will  understand  me  till  you  comprehend 
Philip." 


48  Malbone. 

"  Let  us  agree  on  one  thing,"  Harry  said. 
"  Surely,  aunt,  you  know  how  he  loves  Hope  ? " 

Aunt  Jane  approached  a  degree  nearer  the 
equator,  and  said,  gently,  "  I  fear  I  do." 

"Fear  ? " 

"Yes,  fear.  That  is  just  what  troubles  me. 
I  know  precisely  how  he  loves  her.  II  selaisse 
aimer.  Philip  likes  to  be  petted,  as  much  as 
any  cat,  and,  while  he  will  purr,  Hope  is 
happy.  Very  few  men  accept  idolatry  with 
any  degree  of  grace,  but  he  unfortunately 
does." 

"  Unfortunately  ? "  remonstrated  Hal,  as  far 
as  ever  from  being  satisfied.  "  This  is  really 
too  bad.  You  never  will  do  him  any  justice." 

"  Ah  ?  "  said  Aunt  Jane,  chilling  again,  "  I 
thought  I  did.  I  observe  he  is  very  much 
afraid  of  me,  and  there  seems  to  be  no  other 
reason." 

"The  real  trouble  is,"  said  Harry,  after  a 
pause,  "  that  you  doubt  his  constancy." 

"  What  do  you  call  constancy  ? "  said  she. 
"  Kissing  a  woman's  picture  ten  years  after  a 
man  has  broken  her  heart  ?  Philip  Malbone 
has  that  kind  of  constancy,  and  so  had  his 
father  before  him." 

This  was    too    much  for  Harry,   who   was 


Malbone  49 

making  for  the  door  in  indignation,  when  little 
Ruth  came  in  with  Aunt  Jane's  luncheon,  and 
that  lady  was  soon  absorbed  in  the  hopeless 
task  of  keeping  her  handmaiden's  pretty  blue 
and  white  gingham  sleeve  out  of  the  butter- 
plate. 


50  Malbone. 


V. 

A  MULTIVALVE  HEART. 

TDHILIP  MALBONE  had  that  perfectly 
•*•  sunny  temperament  which  is  peculiarly 
captivating  among  Americans,  because  it  is  so 
rare.  He  liked  everybody  and  everybody 
liked  him  ;  he  had  a  thousand  ways  of  afford 
ing  pleasure,  and  he  received  it  in  the  giving. 
He  had  a  personal  beauty,  which,  strange  to 
say,  was  recognized  by  both  sexes,  —  for  hand 
some  men  must  often  consent  to  be  mildly 
hated  by  their  own.  He  had  travelled  much, 
and  had  mingled  in  very  varied  society  ;  he 
had  a  moderate  fortune,  no  vices,  no  ambition, 
and  no  capacity  of  ennui. 

He  was  fastidious  and  over-critical,  it  might 
be,  in  his  theories,  but  in  practice  he  was 
easily  suited  and  never  vexed. 

He  Jiked  travelling,  and  he  liked  staying  at 
home  ;  he  was  so  continually  occupied  as  to 
give  an  apparent  activity  to  all  his  life,  and  yet 
he  was  never  too  busy  to  be  interrupted,  es 
pecially  if  the  intruder  were  a  woman  or  a 


Malbone.  5 1 

child.  He  liked  to  be  with  people  of  his  own 
age,  whatever  their  condition  ;  he  also  liked 
old  people  because  they  were  old,  and  children 
because  they  were  young.  In  travelling  by 
rail,  he  would  woo  crying  babies  out  of  their 
mothers'  arms,  and  still  them  ;  it  was  always 
his  back  that  Irishwomen  thumped,  to  ask  if 
they  must  get  out  at  the  next  station  ;  and  he 
might  be  seen  handing  out  decrepit  paupers, 
as  if  they  were  of  royal  blood  and  bore  con 
cealed  sceptres  in  their  old  umbrellas.  Ex 
quisitely  nice  in  his  personal  habits,  he  had 
the  practical  democracy  of  a  good-natured 
young  prince  ;  he  had  never  yet  seen  a  human 
being  who  awed  him,  nor  one  whom  he  had 
the  slightest  wish  to  awe.  His  courtesy, 
had,  therefore,  that  comprehensiveness  which 
we  call  republican,  though  it  was  really  the 
least  republican  thing  about  him.  All  felt  its 
attraction  ;  there  was  really  no  one  who  dis 
liked  him,  except  Aunt  Jane  ;  and  even  she 
admitted  that  he  was  the  only  person  who 
knew  how  to  cut  her  lead-pencil. 

That  cheerful  English  premier  who  thought 
that  any  man  ought  to  find  happiness  enough 
in  walking  London  streets  and  looking  at  the 
lobsters  in  the  fish-markets,  was  not  more  easily 


52  Malbone. 

satisfied  than  Malbone.  He  liked  to  observe 
the  groups  of  boys  fishing  at  the  wharves, 
or  to  hear  the  chat  of  their  fathers  about 
coral-reefs  and  penguins'  eggs  ;  or  to  sketch 
the  fisher's  little  daughter  awaiting  her  father 
at  ni^ht  on  some  deserted  and  crumbling 
wharf,  his  blue  pea-jacket  over  her  fair  ring 
leted  head,  and  a  great  cat  standing  by  with 
tail  uplifted,  her  sole  protector.  He  liked  the 
luxurious  indolence  of  yachting,  and  he  liked 
as  well  to  float  in  his  wherry  among  the  fleet 
of  fishing  schooners  getting  under  way  after 
a  three  days'  storm,  each  vessel  slipping  out 
in  turn  from  the  closely  packed  crowd,  and 
spreading  its  white  wings  for  flight.  He  liked 
to  watch  the  groups  of  negro  boys  and  girls 
strolling  by  the  window  at  evening,  and  strum 
ming  on  the  banjo,  —  the  only  vestige  of  trop 
ical  life  that  haunts  our  busy  Northern  zone. 
But  he  liked  just  as  well  to  note  the  ways  of 
well-dressed  girls  and  boys  at  croquet  parties, 
or  to  sit  at  the  club  window  and  hear  the  gos 
sip.  'He  was  a  jewel  of  a  listener,  and  was 
not  easily  bored  even  when  Philadelphians 
talked  about  families,  .or  New-Yorkers  about 
bargains,  or  Bostonians  about  books.  A  man 
who  has  not  one  absorbing  aim  can  get  a  great 


Malbone.  53 

many  miscellaneous  things  into  each  twenty- 
four  hours  ;  and  there  was  not  a  day  in  which 
Philip  did  not  make  himself  agreeable  and 
useful  to  many  people,  receive  many  confi 
dences,  and  give  much  good-humored  advice 
about  matters  of  which  he  knew  nothing. 
His  friends'  children  ran  after  him  in  the 
street,  and  he  knew  the  pet  theories  and  wines 
of  elderly  gentlemen.  He  said  that  he  won 
their  hearts  by  remembering  every  occurrence 
in  their  lives  except  their  birthdays. 

It  was,  perhaps,  no  drawback  on  the  popu 
larity  of  Philip  Malbone  that  he  had  been  for 
some  ten  years  reproached  as  a  systematic  flirt 
by  all  women  with  whom  he  did  not  happen  at 
the  moment  to  be  flirting.  The  reproach  was 
unjust ;  he  had  never  done  anything  systemat 
ically  in  his  life  ;  it  was  his  temperament  that 
flirted,  not  his  will.  He  simply  had  that  most 
perilous  of  all  seductive  natures,  in  which  the 
seducer  is  himself  seduced.  With  a  personal 
refinement  that  almost  amounted  to  purity,  he 
was  constantly  drifting  into  loves  more  pro 
foundly  perilous  than  if  they  had  belonged  to 
a  grosser  man.  Almost  all  women  loved  him, 
because  he  loved  almost  all  ;  he  never  had  to 
assume  an  ardor,  for  he  always  felt  it.  His 


54  Malbone. 

heart  was  multivalve  ;  he  could  love  a  dozen  at 
once  in  various  modes  and  gradations,  press  a 
dozen  hands  in  a  day,  gaze  into  a  dozen  pair 
of  eyes  with  unfeigned  tenderness  ;  while  the 
last  pair  wept  for  him,  he  was  looking  into  the 
next.  In  truth,  he  loved  to  explore  those  sweet 
depths ;  \humanity  is  the  highest  thing  to  in 
vestigate,  he  said,  and  the  proper  study  of  man 
kind  is  woman.  Woman  needs  to  be  studied 
while  under  the  influence  of  emotion  ;  let  us 
therefore  have  the  emotions.  This  was  the 
reason  he  gave  to  himself;  but  this  refined 
Mormonism  of  the  heart  was  not  based  on 
reason,  but  on  temperament  and  habit.  In 
such  matters  logic  is  only  for  the  by-standers. 
His  very  generosity  harmed  him,  as  all  our 
good  qualities  may  harm  us  when  linked  with 
bad  ones ;  he  had  so  many  excuses  for  doing 
kindnesses  to  his  friends,  it  was  hard  to  quar 
rel  with  him  if  he  did  them  too  tenderly.  He 
was  no  more  capable  of  unkindness  than  of 
constancy  ;  and  so  strongly  did  he  fix  the  alle 
giance  of  those  who  loved  him,  that  the  women 
to  whom  he  had  caused  most  anguish  would 
still  defend  him  when  accused  ;  would  have 
crossed  the  continent,  if  needed,  to  nurse  him 
in  illness,  and  would  have  rained  rivers  of  tears 


Malbone.  5  5 

on  his  grave.  To  do  him  justice,  he  would 
have  done  almost  as  much  for  them,  —  for  any 
of  them.  He  could  torture  a  devoted  heart, 
but  only  through  a  sort  of  half-wilful  uncon 
sciousness  ;  he  could  not  bear  to  see  tears  shed 
in  his  presence,  nor  to  let  his  imagination 
dwell  very  much  on  those  which  flowed  in  his 
absence.  When  he  had  once  loved  a  woman, 
or  even  fancied  that  he  loved  her,  he  built  for 
her  a  shrine  that  was  never  dismantled,  and  in 
which  a  very  little  faint  incense  would  some 
times  be  found  burning  for  years  after  ;  he 
never  quite  ceased  to  feel  a  languid  thrill  at 
the  mention  of  her  name  ;  he  would  make  even 
for  a  past  love  the  most  generous  sacrifices  of 
time,  convenience,  truth  perhaps, — everything, 
in  short,  but  the  present  love.  To  those  who 
had  given  him  all  that  an  undivided  heart  can 
give  he  would  deny  nothing  but  an  undivided 
heart  in  return.  The  misfortune  was  that  this 
was  the  only  thing  they  cared  to  possess. 

This  abundant  and  spontaneous  feeling  gave 
him  an  air  of  earnestness,  without  which  he 
could  not  have  charmed  any  woman,  and,  least 
of  all,  one  like  Hope.  No  woman  really  loves 
a  trifler  ;  she  must  at  least  convince  herself 
that  he  who  trifles  with  others  is  serious  with 


56  Malbone. 

her.  Philip  was  never  quite  serious  and  never 
quite  otherwise  ;  he  never  deliberately  got  up 
a  passion,  for  it  was  never  needful ;  he  simply 
found  an  object  for  his  emotions,  opened  their 
valves,  and  then  watched  their  flow.  To  love 
a  charming  woman  in  her  presence  is  no  test 
of  genuine  passion  ;  let  us  know  how  much 
you  long  for  her  in  absence.  This  longing 
had  never  yet  seriously  troubled  Malbone, 
provided  there  was  another  charming  person 
within  an  easy  walk. 

If  it  was  sometimes  forced  upon  him  that  all 
this  ended  in  anguish  to  some  of  these  various 
charmers,  first  or  last,  then  there  was  always 
in  reserve  the  pleasure  of  repentance.  He 
was  very  winning  and  generous  in  his  repent 
ances,  and  he  enjoyed  them  so  much  they  were 
often  repeated.  He  did  not  pass  for  a  weak 
person,  and  he  was  not  exactly  weak  ;  but  he 
spent  his  life  in  putting  away  temptations  with 
one  hand  and  pulling  them  back  with  the 
other.  There  was  for  him  something  piquant 
in  being  thus  neither  innocent  nor  guilty,  but 
always  on  some  delicious  middle  ground.  He 
loved  dearly  to  skate  on  thin  ice,  —  that  was 
the  trouble,  —  especially  where  he  fancied  the 
water  to  be  just  within  his  depth.  Unluckily 
the  sea  of  life  deepens  rather  fast. 


Malbone.  57 

Malbone  had  known  Hope  from  her  child 
hood,  as  he  had  known  her  cousins,  but  their 
love  dated  from  their  meetings  beside  the  sick 
bed  of  his  mother,  over  whom  he  had  watched 
with  unstinted  devotion  for  weary  months. 
She  had  been  very  fond  of  the  young  girl,  and 
her  last  earthly  act  was  to  place  Hope's  hand 
in  Philip's.  Long  before  this  final  consecra 
tion,  Hope  had  won  his  heart  more  thorough 
ly,  he  fancied,  than  any  woman  he  had  ever 
seen.  The  secret  of  this  crowning  charm  was, 
perhaps,  that  she  was  a  new  sensation.  He 
had  prided  himself  on  his  knowledge  of  her 
sex,  and  yet  here  was  a  wholly  new  species. 
He  was  acquainted  with  the  women  of  society, 
and  with  the  women  who  only  wished  to  be  in 
society.  But  here  was  one  who  was  in  the 
chrysalis,  and  had  never  been  a  grub,  and  had 
no  wish  to  be  a  butterfly,  and  what  should  he 
make  of  her  ?  He  was  like  a  student  of  in 
sects  who  had  never  seen  a  bee.  Never  had 
he  known  a  young  girl  who  cared  for  the  things 
which  this  maiden  sought,  or  who  was  not  daz 
zled  by  things  to  which  Hope  seemed  perfectly 
indifferent.  She  was  not  a  devotee,  she  was 
not  a  prude  ;  people  seemed  to  amuse  and  in 
terest  her ;  she  liked  them,  she  declared,  as 


58  Malbonc. 

much  as  she  liked  books.  But  this  very  way 
of  putting  the  thing  seemed  like  inverting  the 
accustomed  order  of  affairs  in  the  polite  world, 
and  was  of  itself  a  novelty. 

Of  course  he  had  previously  taken  his  turn 
for  a  while  among  Kate's  admirers  ;  but  it  was 
when  she  was  very  young,  and,  moreover,  it 
was  hard  to  get  up  anything  like  a  tender  and 
confidential  relation  with  that  frank  maiden  ; 
she  never  would  have  accepted  Philip  Malbone 
for  herself,  and  she  was  by  no  means  satisfied 
with  his  betrothal  to  her  best  beloved.  But 
that  Hope  loved  him  ardently  there  was  no 
doubt,  however  it  might  be  explained.  Per 
haps  it  was  some  law  of  opposites,  and  she 
needed  some  one  of  lighter  nature  than  her 
own.  As  her  resolute  purpose  charmed  him, 
so  she  may  have  found  a  certain  fascination  in 
the  airy  way  in  which  he  took  hold  on  life  ;  he 
was  so  full  of  thought  and  intelligence  ;  pos 
sessing  infinite  leisure,  and  yet  incapable  of 
ennui ;  ready  to  oblige  every  one,  and  doing  so 
many  kind  acts  at  so  little  personal  sacrifice  ; 
always  easy,  graceful,  lovable,  and  kind.  In 
her  just  indignation  at  those  who  called  him 
heartless,  she  forgot  to  notice  that  his  heart 
was  not  deep.  He  was  interested  in  all  her 


Malbone.  59 

pursuits,  could  aid  her  in  all  her  studies,  sug 
gest  schemes  for  her  benevolent  desires,  and 
could  then  make  others  work  for  her,  and  even 
work  himself.  People  usually  loved  Philip, 
even  while  they  criticised  him  ;  but  Hope 
loved  him  first,  and  then  could  not  criticise  him 
at  .all. 

Nature  seems  always  planning  to  equalize 
characters,  and  to  protect  our  friends  from 
growing  too  perfect  for  our  deserts.  Love,  for 
instance,  is  apt  to  strengthen  the  weak,  and  yet 
sometimes  weakens  the  strong.  Under  its  in 
fluence  Hope  sometimes  appeared  at  disadvan 
tage.  Had  the  object  of  her  love  been  indif 
ferent,  the  result  might  have  been  otherwise, 
but  her  ample  nature  apparently  needed  to 
contract  itself  a  little,  to  find  room  within 
Philip's  heart.  Not  that  in  his  presence  she 
became  vain  or  petty  or  jealous ;  that  would 
have  been  impossible.  She  only  grew  cred 
ulous  and  absorbed  and  blind.  A  kind  of 
gentle  obstinacy,  too,  developed  itself  in  her 
nature,  and  all  suggestion  of  defects  in  him 
fell  off  from  her  as  from  a  marble  image  of 
Faith.  If  he  said  or  did  anything,  there  was 
no  appeal  ;  that  was  settled,  let  us  pass  to 
something  else. 


60  Malbone. 

I  almost  blush  to  admit  that  Aunt  Jane  — 
of  whom  it  could  by  no  means  be  asserted 
that  she  was  a  saintly  lady,  but  only  a  very 
charming  one  —  rather  rejoiced  in  this  trans 
formation. 

"  I  like  it  better,  my  dear,"  she  said,  with 
her  usual  frankness,  to  Kate.  "  Hope  was  al 
together  too  heavenly  for  my  style.  When 
she  first  came  here,  I  secretly  thought  I  never 
should  care  anything  about  her.  She  seemed 
nothing  but  a  little  moral  tale.  I  thought  she 
would  not  last  me  five  minutes.  But  now  she 
is  growing  quite  human  and  ridiculous  about 
that  Philip,  and  I  think  I  may  find  her  very 
attractive  indeed." 


Malbone.  .    61 


VI. 

"SOME    LOVER'S   CLEAR    DAY." 

"  T   T  OPE ! "  said  Philip  Malbone,   as   they 

AA  sailed  together  in  a  little  boat  the 
next  morning,  "  I  have  come  back  to  you  from 
months  of  bewildered  dreaming.  I  have  been 
wandering,  —  no  matter  where.  I  need  you. 
You  cannot  tell  how  much  I  need  you." 

"  I  can  estimate  it,"  she  answered,  gently, 
"  by  my  need  of  you." 

"  Not  at  all,"  said  Philip,  gazing  in  her 
trustful  face.  "  Any  one  whom  you  loved 
would  adore  you,  could  he  be  by  your  side. 
You  need  nothing.  It  is  I  who  need  you." 

"  Why  ?  "  she  asked,  simply. 

"  Because,"  he  said,  "  I  am  capable  of  be 
having  very  much  like  a  fool.  Hope,  I  am 
not  worthy  of  you  ;  why  do  you  love  me  ? 
why  do  you  trust  me  ? " 

"  I  do  not  know  how  I  learned  to  love  you," 
said  Hope.  "  It  is  a  blessing  that  was  given 
to  me.  But  I  learned  to  trust  you  in  your 
mother's  sick-room." 


62  Malbone. 

"  Ay,"  said  Philip,  sadly,  "  there,  at  least,  I 
did  my  full  duty." 

"As  few  would  have  done  it,"  said  Hope, 
firmly,  —  "very  few.  Such  prolonged  self- 
sacrifice  must  strengthen  a  man  for  life." 

"Not  always,"  said  Philip,  uneasily.  "Too 
much  of  that  sort  of  thing  may  hurt  one,  I 
fancy,  as  well  as  too  little.  He  may  come  to 
imagine  that  the  balance  of  virtue  is  in  his 
favor,  and  that  he  may  grant  himself  a  little 
indulgence  to  make  up  for  lost  time.  That 
sort  of  recoil  is  a  little  dangerous,  as  I  some 
times  feel,  do  you  know  ? " 

"And  you  show  it,"  said  Hope,  ardently,- 
"by  fresh  sacrifices!  How  much  trouble  you 
have  taken  about  Emilia !  Some  time,  when 
you  are  willing,  you  shall  tell  me  all  about  it. 
You  always  seemed  to  me  a  magician,  but 
I  did  not  think  that  even  you  could  restore 
her  to  sense  and  wisdom  so  soon." 

Malbone  was  just  then  very  busy  putting 
the  boat  about  ;  but  when  he  had  it  on  the 
other  tack,  he  said,  "  How  do  you  like  her?" 

"  Philip,"  said  Hope,  her  eyes  filling  with 
tears,  "  I  wonder  if  you  have  the  slightest  con 
ception  how  my  heart  is  fixed  on  that  child. 
She  has  always  been  a  sort  of  dream  to  me, 


Malbone.  6$ 

and  the  difficulty  of  getting  any  letters  from 
her  has  only  added  to  the  excitement.  Now 
that  she  is  here,  my  whole  heart  yearns 
toward  her.  Yet,  when  I  look  into  her  eyes, 
a  sort  of  blank  hopelessness  comes  over  me. 
They  seem  like  the  eyes  of  some  untamable 
creature  whose  language  I  shall  never  learn. 
Philip,  you  are  older  and  wiser  than  I,  and 
have  shown  already  that  you  understand  her. 
Tell  me  what  I  can  do  to  make  her  love  me  ?  " 

"  Tell  me  how  any  one  could  help  it  ?  "  said 
Malbone,  looking  fondly  on  the  sweet,  pleading 
face  before  him. 

"  I  am  beginning  to  fear  that  it  can  be 
helped,"  she  said.  Her  thoughts  were  still 
with  Emilia. 

"  Perhaps  it  can,"  said  Phil,  "  if  you  sit  so 
far  away  from  people.  Here  we  are  alone  on 
the  bay.  Come  and  sit  by  me,  Hope." 

She  had  been  sitting  amidships,  but  she 
came  aft  at  once,  and  nestled  by  him  as  he  sat 
holding  the  tiller.  She  put  her  face  against 
his  knee,  like  a  tired  child,  and  shut  her  eyes ; 
her  hair  was  lifted  by  the  summer  breeze  ;  a 
scent  of  roses  came  from  her  ;  the  mere  con 
tact  of  anything  so  fresh  and  pure  was  a  de 
light.  He  put  his  arm  around  her,  and  all  the 


64  Malbone. 

first  ardor  of  passion  came  back  to  him  again  ; 
he  remembered  how  he  had  longed  to  win 
this  Diana,  and  how  thoroughly  she  was  won. 

"  It  is  you  who  do  me  good,"  said  she.  "  O 
Philip,  sail  as  slowly  as  you  can."  But  he 
only  sailed  farther,  instead  of  more  slowly, 
gliding  in  and  out  among  the  rocky  islands 
in  the  light  north  wind,  which,  for  a  wonder, 
lasted  all  that  day,  —  dappling  the  bare  hills 
of  the  Isle  of  Shadows  with  a  shifting  beauty. 
The  tide  was  in  and  brimming,  the  fishing- 
boats  were  busy,  white  gulls  soared  and  clat 
tered  round  them,  and  heavy  cormorants 
flapped  away  as  they  neared  the  rocks.  Be 
neath  the  boat  the  soft  multitudinous  jelly- 
fishes  waved  their  fringed  pendants,  or  glit 
tered  with  tremulous  gold  along  their  pink, 
translucent  sides.  Long  lines  and  streaks  of 
paler  blue  lay  smoothly  along  the  enamelled 
surface,  the  low,  amethystine  hills  lay  couched 
beyond  them,  and  little  clouds  stretched  them 
selves  in  lazy  length  above  the  beautiful  ex 
panse.  They  reached  the  ruined  fort  at  last, 
and  Philip,  surrendering  Hope  to  others,  was 
himself  besieged  by  a  joyous  group. 

As  you  stand  upon  the  crumbling  parapet 
of  old  Fort  Louis,  you  feel  yourself  poised 


Malbone.  65 

in  middle  air  ;  the  sea-birds  soar  and  swoop 
around  you,  the  white  surf  lashes  the  rocks  far 
below,  the  white  vessels  come  and  go,  the  water 
is  around  you  on  all  sides  but  one,  and  spreads 
in  pale  blue  beauty  up  the  lovely  bay,  or,  in 
deeper  tints,  southward  towards  the  horizon 
line.  I  know  of  no  ruin  in  America  which 
nature  has  so  resumed  ;  it  seems  a  part  of  the 
living  rock  ;  you  cannot  imagine  it  away. 

It  is  a  single  round,  low  tower,  shaped  like 
the  tomb  of  Caecilia  Metella.  But  its  stately 
position  makes  it  rank  with  the  vast  sisterhood 
of  wave-washed  strongholds  ;  it  might  be  King 
Arthur's  Cornish  Tyntagel  ;  it  might  be  "  the 
teocallis  tower"  of  Tuloom.  As  you  gaze 
down  from  its  height,  all  things  that  float 
upon  the  ocean  seem  equalized.  Look  at  the 
crowded  life  on  yonder  frigate,  coming  in  full- 
sailed  before  the  steady  sea-breeze.  To  furl 
that  heavy  canvas,  a  hundred  men  cluster 
like  bees  upon  the  yards,  yet  to  us  upon 
this  height  it  is  all  but  a  plaything  for  the 
eyes,  and  we  turn  with  equal  interest  from 
that  thronged  floating  citadel  to  some  lonely 
boy  in  his  skiff. 

Yonder  there  sail  to  the  ocean,  beating 
wearily  to  windward,  a  few  slow  vessels.  In- 

£ 


66  Malbonc. 

ward  come  jubilant  white  schooners,  wing-and- 
wing.  There  are  fishing-smacks  towing  their 
boats  behind  them  like  a  family  of  children  ; 
and  there  are  slender  yachts  that  bear  only 
their  own  light  burden.  Once  from  this  height 
I  saw  the  whole  yacht  squadron  round  Point 
Judith,  and  glide  in  like  a  flock  of  land-bound 
sea-birds ;  and  above  them,  yet  more  snowy 
and  with  softer  curves,  pressed  onward  the 
white  squadrons  of  the  sky. 

Within,  the  tower  is  full  of  debris,  now  dis 
integrated  into  one  solid  mass,  and  covered 
with  vegetation.  You  can  lie  on  the  blossom 
ing  clover,  where  the  bees  hum  and  the  crick 
ets  chirp  around  you,  and  can  look  through 
the  arch  which  frames  its  own  fair  picture. 
In  the  foreground  lies  the  steep  slope  over 
grown  with  bayberry  and  gay  with  thistle 
blooms  ;  then  the  little  winding  cove  with  its 
bordering  cliffs ;  and  the  rough  pastures  with 
their  grazing  sheep  beyond.  Or,  ascending 
the  parapet,  you  can  look  across  the  bay  to  the 
men  making  hay  picturesquely  on  far-off  lawns, 
or  to  the  cannon  on  the  outer  works  of  Fort 
Adams,  looking  like  vast  black  insects  that 
have  crawled  forth  to  die. 

Here  our  young  people  spent  the  day  ;  some 


Malbone.  67 

sketched,  some  played  croquet,  some  bathed 
in  rocky  inlets  where  the  kingfisher  screamed 
above  them,  some  rowed  to  little  craggy  isles 
for  wild  roses,  some  fished,  and  then  were 
taught  by  the  boatmen  to  cook  their  fish  in 
novel  island  ways.  The  morning  grew  more 
and  more  cloudless,  and  then  in  the  afternoon 
a  fog  came  and  went  again,  marching  by  with 
its  white  armies,  soon  met  and  annihilated  by 
a  rainbow. 

The  conversation  that  day  was  very  gay  and 
incoherent, —  little  fragments  of  all  manner  of 
things  ;  science,  sentiment,  everything  :  "  Like 
a  distracted  dictionary,"  Kate  said.  At  last 
this  lively  maiden  got  Philip  away  from  the 
rest,  and  began  to  cross-question  him. 

"Tell  me,"  she  said,  "about  Emilia's  Swiss 
lover.  She  shuddered  when  she  spoke  of  him. 
Was  he  so  very  bad  ? " 

"Not  at  all,"  was  the  answer.  "You  had 
false  impressions  of  him.  He  was  a  handsome, 
manly  fello.w,  a  little  over-sentimental.  He  had 
travelled,  and  had  been  a  merchant's  clerk 
in  Paris  and  London.  Then  he  came  back, 
and  became  a  boatman  on  the  lake,  some  said, 
for  love  of  her." 

"  Did  she  love  him  ?  " 


68  Malbone. 

"  Passionately,  as  .she  thought." 

"  Did  he  love  her  much  ? " 

"  I  suppose  so." 

"  Then  why  did  she  stop  loving  him  ? " 

"  She  does  not  hate  him  ? " 

"  No,"  said  Kate,  "  that  is  what  surprises  me. 
Lovers  hate,  or  those  who  have  been  lovers. 
She  is  only  indifferent.  Philip,  she  had  wound 
silk  upon  a  torn  piece  of  his  carte-de-visite, 
and  did  not  know  it  till  F  showed  it  to  her. 
Even  then  she  did  not  care." 

"  Such  is  woman  !  "  said  Philip. 

"  Nonsense,"  said  Kate.  "  Sh£  had  seen 
somebody  whom  she  loved  better,  and  she  still 
loves  that  somebody.  Who  was  it  ?  She  had 
not  been  introduced  into  society.  \Mere  there 
any  superior  men  among  her  teachers  ?  She 
is  just  the  girl  to'  fall  in  love  with  her  teacher, 
at  least  in  Europe,  where  they  are  the  only 
men  one  sees." 

"  There  were  some  very  superior  men  among 
them,"  said  Philip.  "  Professor  Schirmer  has 
a  European  reputation  ;  he  wears  blue  specta 
cles  and  a  maroon  wig." 

"  Do  not  talk  so,"  said  Kate.  '  "  I  teil  you, 
Emilia  is  not  changeable,  like  you,  sir.  She  is 
passionate  and  constant.  She  would*  have 


Malbone.  69 

married  that  man  or  died  for  him.  You  may 
think  that  your  sage  counsels  restrained  her, 
but  they  did  not ;  it  was  that  she  loved  some 
one  else.  Tell  me  honestly.  Do  you  not 
know  that  there  is  somebody  in  Europe  whom 
she  loves  to  distraction  ?  " 

"  I  do  not  know  it,"  said  Philip. 

"  Of  coursa  you  do  not  know  -it,"  returned 
the  questioner.  "  Do  you  not  think  it  ?  " 

"  I  have  no  reason  to  believe  it." 

"  That  has  nothuig  to  do  with  it,"  said  Kate. 
"Things  that  we  believe  without  any  reason 
have  a  great  deal  more  weight  with  us.  Do 
you  not  believe  it  ? " 

"  No,"  said  Philip,  point-blank. 

"  It  is  very  strange,"  mused  Kate.  "Of 
course  you/do  not  know  much  about  it.  She 
may  have  misled  you,  but  I  am  sure  that 
neither  you  nor  any  one  else  could  have  cured 
her  of  a  passion,  especially  an  unreasonable 
one,  without  putting  another  in  its  place.  If 
you  did  it  without  that,  you  are  a  magician,  as 
Hope  once  called  you.  Philip,  I  am  afraid  of 
you." 

"  There  we  sympathize,"  said  Phil.  "  I  am 
sometimes  afraid  of  myself,  but  I  discover  with 
in  half  an  hour  what  a  very  commonplace  and 
harmless  person  I  am." 


70  Malbone. 

Meantime  Emilia  found  herself  beside  her 
sister,  who  was  sketching.  After  watching 
Hope  for  a  time  in  silence,  she  began  to  ques 
tion  her. 

"  Tell  me  what  you  have  been  doing  in  all 
these  years,"  she  said. 

"  O,  I  have  been  at  school,"  said  Hope. 
"  First  I  went  through  the  High  School  ;  then 
I  stayed  out  of  school  a  year,  and  studied 
Greek  and  German  with  my  uncle,  and  music 
with  my  aunt,  who  plays  uncommonly  well. 
Then  I  persuaded  them  to  let  me  go  to  the 
Normal  School  for  two  years,  and  learn  to  be 
a  teacher." 

"A  teacher!"  said  Emilia,  with  surprise.  "  Is 
it  necessary  that  you  should  be  a  teacher  ? " 

"  Very  necessary,"  replied  Hope.  "  I  must 
have  something  to  do,  you  know,  after  I  leave 
school." 

"  To  do  ? "  said  the  other.  "  Cannot  you  go 
to  parties  ? " 

"Not  all  the  time,"  said  her  sister. 

"  Well,"  said  Emilia,  "  in  the  mean  time  you 
can  go  to  drive,  or  make  calls,  or  stay  at  home 
and  make  pretty  little  things  to  wear,  as  other 
girls  do." 

"  I  can  find  time   for  that  too,  little  sister, 


Malbone.  7 1 

when  I  need  them.  But  I  love  children,  you 
know,  and  I  like  to  teach  interesting  studies. 
I  have  splendid  health,  and  I  enjoy  it  all.  I 
like  it  as  you  love  dancing,  my  child,  only  I  like 
dancing  too,  so  I  have  a  greater  variety  of  en 
joyments." 

"  But  shall  you  not  sometimes  find  it  very 
hard  ?  "  said  Emilia. 

"That  is  why  I  shall  like  it,"  was  the  answer. 

"  What  a  girl  you  are ! "  exclaimed  the 
younger  sister.  "You  know  everything  and 
can  do  everything." 

"  A  very  short  everything,"  interposed  Hope. 

"  Kate  says,"  continued  Emilia,  "  that  you 
speak  French  as  well  as  I  do,  and  I  dare  say 
you  dance  a  great  deal  better ;  and  those  are 
the  only  things  I  know." 

"  If  we  both  had  French  partners,  dear,"  re 
plied  the  elder  maiden,  "they  would  soon  find 
the  difference  in  both  respects.  My  dancing 
came  by  nature,  I  believe,  and  I  learned  French 
as  a  child,  by  talking  with  my  old  uncle,  who 
was  half  a  Parisian.  I  believe  I  have  a  good 
accent,  but  I  have  so  little  practice  that  I  have 
no  command  of  the  language  compared  to 
yours.  In  a  week  or  two  we  can  both  try  our 
skill,  as  there  is  to  be  a  ball  for  the  officers  of 


7  2  Malbone. 

the  French  corvette  yonder,"  and  Hope  point 
ed  to  the  heavy  spars,  the  dark  canvas,  and 
the  high  quarter-deck  which  made  the  "  Jean 
Hoche  "  seem  as  if  she  had  floated  out  of  the 
days  of  Nelson. 

The  calm  day  waned,  the  sun  drooped  to  his 
setting  amid  a  few  golden  bars  and  pencilled 
lines  of  light.  Ere  they  were  ready  for  de 
parture,  the  tide  had  ebbed,  and,  in  getting  the 
boats  to  a  practicable  landing-place,  Malbone 
was  delayed  behind  the  others.  As  he  at 
length  brought  his  boat  to  the  rock,  Hope  sat 
upon  the  ruined  fort,  far  above  him,  and  sang. 
Her  noble  contralto  voice  echoed  among  the 
cliffs  down  to  the  smooth  water ;  the  sun  went 
down  behind  her,  and  still  she  sat  stately  and 
noble,  her  white  dress  looking  more  and  more 
spirit-like  against  the  golden  sky  ;  and  still  the 
song  rang  on,  — 

"  Never  a  scornful  word  should  grieve  thee, 

I  'd  smile  on  thee,  sweet,  as  the  angels  do : 
Sweet  as  thy  smile  on  me  shone  ever, 
Douglas,  Douglas,  tender  and  true." 

All  sacredness  and  sweetness,  all  that  was  pure 
and  brave  and  truthful,  seemed  to  rest  in  her. 
And  when  the  song  ceased  at  his  summons, 
and  she  came  down  to  meet  him,  —  glowing, 


Malbone.  73 

beautiful,  appealing,  tender,  —  then  all  meaner 
spells  vanished,  if  such  had  ever  haunted  him, 
and  he  was  hers  alone. 

Later  that  evening,  after  the  household  had 
separated,  Hope  went  into  the  empty  drawing- 
room  for  a  light.  Philip,  after  a  moment's 
hesitation,  followed  her,  and  paused  in  the 
doorway.  She  stood,  a  white-robed  figure, 
holding  the  lighted  candle ;  behind  her  rose 
the  arched  alcove,  whose  quaint  cherubs 
looked  down  on  her ;  she  seemed  to  have 
stepped  forth,  the  awakened  image  of  a  saint. 
Looking  up,  she  saw  his  eager  glance  ;  then 
she  colored,  trembled,  and  put  the  candle 
down.  He  came  to  her,  took  her  hand  and 
kissed  it,  then  put  his  hand  upon  her  brow  and 
gazed  into  her  face,  then  kissed  her  lips.  She 
quietly  yielded,  but  her  color  came  and  went, 
and  her  lips  moved  as  if  to  speak.  For  a  mo 
ment  he  saw  her  only,  thought  only  of  her. 

Then,  even  while  he  gazed  into  her  eyes,  a 
flood  of  other  memories  surged  over  him,  and 
his  own  eyes  grew  dim.  His  head  swam,  the 
lips  he  had  just  kissed  appeared  to  fade  away, 
and  something  of  darker,  richer  beauty  seemed 
to  burn  through  those  fair  features  ;  he  looked 
through  those  gentle  eyes  into  orbs  more  ra- 
4 


74  Malbone. 

diant,  and  it  was  as  if  a  countenance  of  eager 
passion  obliterated  that  fair  head,  and  spoke 
with  substituted  lips,  "  Behold  your  love." 
There  was  a  thrill  of  infinite  ecstasy  in  the 
work  his  imagination  did  ;  he  gave  it  rein,  then 
suddenly  drew  it  in  and  looked  at  Hope.  Her 
touch  brought  pain  for  an  instant,  as  she  laid 
her  hand  upon  him,  but  he  bore  it.  Then 
some  influence  of  calmness  came  ;  there  swept 
by  him  a  flood  of  earlier,  serener  memories ; 
he  sat  down  in  the  window-seat  beside  her, 
and  when  she  put  her  face  beside  his,  and  her 
soft  hair  touched  his  cheek,  and  he  inhaled 
the  rose-odor  that  always  clung  round  her, 
every  atom  of  his  manhood  stood  up  to  drive 
away  the  intruding  presence,  and  he  again 
belonged  to  her  alone. 

When  he  went  to  his  chamber  that  night, 
he  drew  from  his  pocket  a  little  note  in  a  girl 
ish  hand,  which  he  lighted  in  the  candle,  and 
put  upon  the  open  hearth  to  burn.  With  what 
a  cruel,  tinkling  rustle  the  pages  flamed  and 
twisted  and  opened,  as  if  the  fire  read  them, 
and  collapsed  again  as  if  in  agonizing  effort 
to  hold  their  secret  even  in  death !  The 
closely  folded  paper  refused  to  burn,  it  went 
out  again  and  again  ;  while  each  time  Philip 


M alb  one.  75 

Malbone  examined  it  ere  relighting,  with  a 
sort  of  vague  curiosity,  to  see  how  much  pas 
sion  had  already  vanished  out  of  existence, 
and  how  much  yet  survived.  For  each  of 
these  inspections  he  had  to  brush  aside  the 
calcined  portion  of  the  letter,  once  so  warm 
and  beautiful  with  love,  but  changed  to  some 
thing  that  seemed  to  him  a  semblance  of  his 
own  heart  just  then,  —  black,  trivial,  and 
empty. 

Then  he  took  from  a  little  folded  paper  a 
long  tress  of  dark  silken  hair,  and,  without 
trusting  himself  to  kiss  it,  held  it  firmly  in  the 
candle.  It  crisped  and  sparkled,  and  sent  out 
a  pungent  odor,  then  turned  and  writhed  be 
tween  his  fingers,  like  a  living  thing  in  pain. 
What  part  of  us  has  earthly  immortality  but 
our  hair  ?  It  dies  not  with  death.  When  all 
else  of  human  beauty  has  decayed  beyond 
corruption  into  the  more  agonizing  irrecov- 
erableness  of  dust,  the  hair  is  still  fresh  and 
beautiful,  defying  annihilation,  and  restor 
ing  to  the  powerless  heart  the  full  association 
of  the  living  image.  These  shrinking  hairs, 
they  feared  not  death,  but  they  seemed  to  fear 
Malbone.  Nothing  but  the  hand  of  man 
could  destroy  what  he  was  destroying ;  but  his 
hand  shrank  not,  and  it  was  done. 


76  Malbone. 

VII. 

AN    INTERNATIONAL   EXPOSITION. 

AT  the  celebrated  Oldport  ball  for  the 
French  officers,  the  merit  of  each 
maiden  was  estimated  by  the  number  of  for 
eigners  with  whom  she  could  talk  at  once,  for 
there  were  more  gentlemen  than  ladies,  and 
not  more  than  half  the  ladies  spoke  French. 
Here  Emilia  was  in  her  glory  ;  the  ice  being 
once  broken,  officers  were  to  her  but  like  so 
many  school-girls,  and  she  rattled  away  to  the 
admiral  and  the  fleet  captain  and  two  or  three 
lieutenants  at  once,  while  others  hovered  be 
hind  the  circle  of  her  immediate  adorers,  to 
pick  up  the  stray  shafts  of  what  passed  for  wit. 
Other  girls  again  drove  two-in-hand,  at  the 
most,  in  the  way  of  conversation  ;  while  those 
least  gifted  could  only  encounter  one  small 
Frenchman  in  some  safe  corner,  and  converse 
chiefly  by  smiles  and  signs. 

On  the  whole,  the  evening  opened  gayly. 
Newly  arrived  Frenchmen  are  apt  to  be  so 
unused  to  the  familiar  society  of  unmarried 


Malbone.  77 

girls,  that  the  most  innocent  share  in  it  has  for 
them  the  zest  of  forbidden  fruit,  and  the  most 
blameless  intercourse  seems  almost  a  bonne 
fortune.  Most  of  these  officers  were  from  the 
lower  ranks  of  French  society,  but  they  all 
had  that  good-breeding  which  their  race  wears 
with  such  ease,  and  can  unhappily  put  off  with 
the  same. 

The  admiral  and  the  fleet  captain  were  soon 
turned  over  to  Hope,  who  spoke  French  as 
she  did  English,  with  quiet  grace.  She  found 
them  agreeable  companions,  while  Emilia 
drifted  among  the  elder  midshipmen,  who 
were  dazzling  in  gold  lace  if  not  in  intel 
lect.  Kate  fell  to  the  share  of  a  vehement 
little  surgeon,  who  danced  her  out  of  breath. 
Harry  officiated  as  interpreter  between  the 
governor  of  the  State  and  a  lively  young 
ensign,  who  yearned  for  the  society  of  digni 
taries.  The  governor  was  quite  aware  that 
he  himself  could  not  speak  French  ;  the 
Frenchman  was  quite  unaware  that  he  him 
self  could  not  speak  English  ;  but  with  Har 
ry's  aid  they  plunged  boldly  into  conversation. 
Their  talk  happened  to  fall  on  steam-engines, 
English,  French,  American  ;  their  comparative 
cost,  comparative  power,  comparative  cost 


78  Malbone. 

per  horse  power,  —  until  Harry,  who  was  not 
very  strong  upon  the  steam-engine  in  his 
own  tongue,  and  was  quite  helpless  on  that 
point  in  any  other,  got  a  good  deal  astray 
among  the  numerals,  and  implanted  some 
rather  wild  statistics  in  the  mind  of  each. 
The  young  Frenchman  was  far  more  definite, 
when  requested  by  the  governor  to  state  in 
English  the  precise  number  of  men  engaged 
on  board  the  corvette.  With  the  accuracy  of 
his  nation,  he  beamingly  replied,  "  Seeshun- 
dredtousand." 

As  is  apt  to  be  the  case  in  Oldport,  other 
European  nationalities  beside  the  French  were 
represented,  though  the  most  marked  foreign 
accent  was  of  course  to  be  found  among 
Americans  just  returned.  There  were  Eu 
ropean  diplomatists  who  spoke  English  per 
fectly  ;  there  were  travellers  who  spoke  no 
English  at  all ;  and  as  usual  each  guest  sought 
to  practise  himself  in  the  tongue  he  knew 
least.  There  was  the  usual  eagerness  among 
the  fashionable  vulgar  to  make  acquaint 
ance  with  anything  that  combined  broken 
English  and  a  title  ;  and  two  minutes  after 
a  Russian  prince  had  seated  himself  com 
fortably  on  a  sofa  beside  Kate,  he  was  ve- 


Malbone.  79 

hemently  tapped  on  the  shoulder  by  Mrs. 
Courtenay  Brash  with  the  endearing  sum 
mons  :  "  Why  !  Prince,  I  did  n't  see  as  you  was 
here.  Do  you  set  comfortable  where  you  be  ? 
Come  over  to  this  window,  and  tell  all  you 
know!" 

The  prince  might  have  felt  that  his  sum 
mons  was  abrupt,  but  knew  not  that  it  was 
ungrammatical,  and  so  was  led  away  in  tri 
umph.  He  had  been  but  a  month  or  two  in 
this  country,  and  so  spoke  our  language  no 
more  correctly  than  Mrs.  Brash,  but  only  with 
more  grace.  There  was  no  great  harm  in 
Mrs.  Brash  ;  like  most  loquacious  people,  she 
was  kind-hearted,  with  a  tendency  to  corpu 
lence  and  good  works.  She  was  also  afflicted 
with  a  high  color,  and  a  chronic  eruption  of 
diamonds.  Her  husband  had  an  eye  for  them, 
having  begun  life  as  a  jeweller's  apprentice, 
and  having  developed  sufficient  sharpness  of 
vision  in  other  directions  to  become  a  million- 
naire,  and  a  Congressman,  and  to  let  his  wife 
do  as  she  pleased. 

What  goes  forth  from  the  lips  may  vary  in 
dialect,  but  wine  and  oysters  speak  the  uni 
versal  language.  The  supper-table  brought 
our  party  together,  and  they  compared  notes. 


8o  Malbone. 

"  Parties  are  very  confusing,"  philosophized 
Hope,  —  "  especially  when  waiters  and  part 
ners  dress  so  much  ^like.  Just  now  I  saw  an 
ill-looking  man  elbowing  his  way  up  to  Mrs. 
Meredith,  and  I  thought  he  was  bringing  her 
something  on  a  plate.  Instead  of  that,  it  was 
his  hand  he  held  out,  and  she  put  hers  into  it ; 
and  I  was  told  that  he  was  one  of  the  leaders 
of  society.  There  are  very  few  gentlemen 
here  whom  I  could  positively  tell  from  the 
waiters  by  their  faces,  and  yet  Harry  says  the 
fast  set  are  not  here." 

"  Talk  of  the  angels  !  "  said  Philip.  "  There 
come  the  Inglesides." 

Through  the  door  of  the  supper-room  they 
saw  entering  the  drawing-room  one  of  those 
pretty,  fair-haired  women  who  grow  older  up 
to  twenty-five  and  then  remain  unchanged  till 
sixty.  She  was  dressed  in  the  loveliest  pale 
blue  silk,  very  low  in  the  neck,  and  she  seemed 
to  smile  on  all  with  her  white  teeth  and  her 
white  shoulders.  This  was  Mrs.  Ingleside. 
With  her  came  her  daughter  Blanche,  a  pretty 
blonde,  whose  bearing  seemed  at  first  as  in 
nocent  and  pastoral  as  her  name.  Her  dress 
was  of  spotless  white,  what  there  was  of  it ;  and 
her  skin  was  so  snowy,  you  could  hardly 


Malbone.  8 1 

tell  where  the  dress  ended.  Her  complexion 
was  exquisite,  her  eyes  of  the  softest  blue ; 

.£ 

at  twenty-three  she  did  not  look  more  than 
seventeen  ;  and  yet  there  was  such  a  contrast 
between  these  virginal  traits,  and  the  worn, 
faithless,  hopeless  expression,  that  she  looked, 
as  Philip  said,  like  a  depraved  iamb.  Does  it 
show  the  higher  nature  of  woman,  that,  while 
"  fast  young  men  "  are  content  to  look  like 
well-dressed  stable-boys  and  billiard-markers, 
one  may  observe  that  girls  of  the  corresponding 
type  are  apt  to  addict  themselves  to  white 
and  rosebuds,  and  pose  themselves  for  falling 
angels  ? 

Mrs.  Ingleside  was  a  stray  widow  (from  New 
Orleans  via  Paris),  into  whose  antecedents  it 
was  best  not  to  inquire  too  closely.  After 
many  ups  and  downs,  she  was  at  present  up. 
It  was  difficult  to  state  with  certainty  what  bad 
deed  she  had  ever  clone,  or  what  good  deed. 
She  simply  lived  by  her  wits,  and  perhaps  by 
some  want  of  that  article  in  her  male  friends. 
Her  house  was  a  sort  of  gentlemanly  club 
house,  where  the  presence  of  two  women 
offered  a  shade  less  restraint  than  if  there  had 
been  men  alone.  She  was  amiable  and  un 
scrupulous,  went  regularly  to  church,  and  need- 
4*  r 


82  Malbone. 

ed  only  money  to  be  the  most  respectable  and 
fastidious  of  women.  It  was  always  rather  a 
mystery  who  paid  for  her  charming  little  din 
ners  ;  indeed,  several  things  in  her  demeanor 
were  questionable,  but  as  the  questions  were 
never  answered,  no  harm  was  done,  and  every 
body  invited  her  because  everybody  else  did. 
Had  she  committed  some  graceful  forgery  to 
morrow,  or  some  mild  murder  the  next  day, 
nobody  would  have  been  surprised,  and  all  her 
intimate  friends  would  have  said  it  was  what 
they  had  always  expected. 

Meantime  the  entertainment  went  on. 

"  I  shall  not  have  scalloped  oysters  in  heav 
en,"  lamented  Kate,  as  she  finished  with 
healthy  appetite  her  first  instalment. 

"  Are  you  sure  you  shall  not  ? "  said  the 
sympathetic  Hope,  who  would  have  eagerly 
followed  Kate  into  Paradise  with  a  supply  of 
whatever  she  liked  best. 

"  I  suppose  you  will,  darling,"  responded 
Kate,  "  but  what  will  you  care  ?  It  seems  hard 
that  those  who  are  bad  enough  to  long  for 
them  should  not  be  good  enough  to  earn 
them." 

At  this  moment  Blanche  Ingleside  and  her 
train  swept  into  the  supper-room  ;  the  girls 


Malbone.  83 

cleared  a  passage,  their  attendant  youths  col 
lected  chairs.  Blanche  tilted  hers  slightly 
against  a  wall,  professed  utter  exhaustion,  and 
demanded  a  fresh  bottle  of  champagne  in  a 
voice  that  showed  no  signs  of  weakness.  Pres 
ently  a  sheepish  youth  drew  near  the  noisy 
circle. 

"  Here  comes  that  Talbot  van  Alsted,"  said 
Blanche,  bursting  at  last  into  a  loud  whisper. 
"  What  a  goose  he  is,  to  be  sure  !  Dear  baby, 
it  promised  its  mother  it  would  n't  drink  wine 
for  two  months.  Let's  all  drink  with  him.  Tal 
bot,  my  boy,  just  in  time  !  Fill  your  glass. 
Stosst  an  !  " 

And  Blanche  and  her  attendant  spirits  in 
white  muslin  thronged  around  the  weak  boy, 
saw  him  charged  with  the  three  glasses  that 
were  all  his  head  could  stand,  and  sent  him 
reeling  home  to  his  mother.  Then  they  looked 
round  for  fresh  worlds  to  conquer. 

"  There  are  the  Maxwells  !  "  said  Miss  Ingle- 
side,  without  lowering  her  voice.  "  Who  is 
that  party  in  the  high-necked  dress  ?  Is  she 
the  schoolmistress  ?  Why  do  they  have  such 
people  here  ?  Society  is  getting  so  common, 
there  is  no  bearing  it.  That  Emily  who  is 
with  her  is  too  good  for  that  slow  set  She 's 


84  Malbone. 

the  school-girl  we  heard  of  at  Nice,  or  some 
where  ;  she  wanted  to  elope  with  somebody, 
and  Phil  Malbone  stopped  her,  worse  luck. 
She  will  be  for  eloping  with  us,  before  long." 

Emilia  colored  scarlet,  and  gave  a  furtive 
glance  at  Hope,  half  of  shame,  half  of  triumph. 
Hope  looked  at  Blanche  with  surprise,  made  a 
movement  forward,  but  was  restrained  by  the 
crowd,  while  the  noisy  damsel  broke  out  in  a 
different  direction. 

"  How  fiendishly  hot  it  is  here,  though ! 
Jones  junior,  put  your  elbow  through  that 
window  !  This  champagne  is  boiling.  What  a 
tiresome  time  we  shall  have  to-morrow,  when 
the  Frenchmen  are  gone !  Ah,  Count,  there 
you  are  at  last !  Ready  for  the  German  ? 
Come  for  me  ?  Just  primed  and  up  to  any 
thing,  and  so  I  tell  you ! " 

But  as  Count  Posen,  kissing  his  hand  to  her, 
squeezed  his  way  through  the  crowd  with  Hal, 
to  be  presented  to  Hope,  there  came  over 
Blanche's  young  face  such  a  mingled  look  of 
hatred  and  weariness  and  chagrin,  that  even 
her  unobserving  friends  saw  it,  and  asked  with 
tender  commiseration  what  was  up. 

The  dancing  recommenced.  There  was  the 
usual  array  of  partners,  distributed  by  myste- 


M alb  one.  85 

rious  discrepancies,  like  soldiers'  uniforms,  so 
that  all  the  tall  drew  short,  and  all  the  short 
had  tall.  There  were  the  timid  couples,  who 
danced  with  trembling  knees  and  eyes  cast 
over  their  shoulders ;  the  feeble  couples,  who 
meandered  aimlessly  and  got  tangled  in  cor 
ners  ;  the  rash  couples,  who  tore  breathlessly 
through  the  rooms  and  brought  up  at  last 
against  the  large  white  waistcoat  of  the  violon 
cello.  There  was  the  professional  lady-killer, 
too  supreme  and  indolent  to  dance,  but  sitting 
amid  an  admiring  bevy  of  fair  women,  where 
he  reared  his  head  of  raven  curls,  and  pulled 
ceaselessly  his  black  mustache.  And  there 
were  certain  young  girls  who,  having  aston 
ished  the  community  for  a  month  by  the  low- 
ness  of  their  dresses,  now  brought  to  bear  their 
only  remaining  art,  and  struck  everybody  dumb 
by  appearing  clothed.  All  these  came  and  went 
and  came  again,  and  had  their  day  or  their 
night,  and  danced  until  the  robust  Hope  went 
home  exhausted  and  left  her  more  fragile  cous 
ins  to  dance  on  till  morning.  Indeed,  it  was 
no  easy  thing  for  them  to  tear  themselves 
away  ;  Kate  was  always  in  demand  ;  Philip 
knew  everybody,  and  had  that  latest  aroma  of 
Paris  which  the  soul  of  fashion  covets  ;  Harry 


86  Malbone. 

had  the  tried  endurance  which  befits  brothers 
and  lovers  at  balls ;  while  Emilia's  foreign 
court  held  out  till  morning,  and  one  handsome 
young  midshipman,  in  special,  kept  revolving 
back  to  her  after  each  long  orbit  of  separation, 
like  a  gold-laced  comet. 

The  young  people  lingered  extravagantly 
late  at  that  ball,  for  the  corvette  was  to  sail 
next  day,  and  the  girls  were  willing  to  make  the 
most  of  it.  As  they  came  to  the  outer  door, 
the  dawn  was  inexpressibly  beautiful,  —  deep 
rose  melting  into  saffron,  beneath  a  tremulous 
morning  star.  With  a  sudden  impulse,  they 
agreed  to  walk  home,  the  fresh  air  seemed  so 
delicious.  Philip  and  Emilia  went  first,  out 
stripping  the  others. 

Passing  the  Jewish  cemetery,  Kate  and  Har 
ry  paused  a  moment.  The  sky  was  almost 
cloudless,  the  air  was  full  of  a  thousand  scents 
and  songs,  the  rose-tints  in  the  sky  were  deep 
ening,  the  star  paling,  while  a  few  vague  clouds 
went  wandering  upward,  and  dreamed  them 
selves  away. 

"  There  is  a  grave  in  that  cemetery,"  said 
Kate,  gently,  "  where  lovers  should  always  be 
sitting.  It  lies  behind  that  tall  monument  ;  I 
cannot  see  it  for  the  blossoming  boughs.  There 


Malbone.  87 

were  two  young  cousins  who  loved  each  other 
from  childhood,  but  were  separated,  because 
Jews  do  not  allow  such  unions.  Neither  of 
them  was  ever  married ;  and  they  lived  to  be 
very  old,  the  one  in  New  Orleans,  the  other  at 
the  North.  In  their  last  illnesses  each  dreamed 
of  walking  in  the  fields  with  the  other,  as  in 
their  early  days  ;  and  the  telegraphic  despatch 
es  that  told  their  deaths  crossed  each  other 
on  the  way.  That  is  his  monument,  and  her 
grave  was  made  behind  it ;  there  was  no  room 
for  a  stone." 

Kate  moved  a  step  or  two,  that  she  might 
see  the  graves.  The  branches  opened  clear. 
What  living  lovers  had  met  there,  at  this 
strange  hour,  above  the  dust  of  lovers  dead  ? 
She  saw  with  amazement,  and  walked  on  quick 
ly  that  Harry  might  not  also  see. 

It  was  Emilia  who  sat  beside  the  grave,  her 
dark  hair  drooping  and  dishevelled,  her  carna 
tion  cheek  still  brilliant  after  the  night's  ex 
citement  ;  and  he  who  sat  at  her  feet,  grasping 
her  hand  in  both  of  his,  while  his  lips  poured 
out  passionate  words  to  which  she  eagerly  list 
ened,  was  Philip  Malbone. 

Here,  upon  the  soil  of  a  new  nation,  lay  a 
spot  whose  associations  seemed  already  as  old 


88  Malbone. 

as  time  could  make  them,  —  the  last  footprint 
of  a  tribe  now  vanished  from  this  island  for 
ever,  —  the  resting-place  of  a  race  whose  very 
funerals  would  soon  be  no  more.  Each  April 
the  robins  built  their  nests  around  these  crumb 
ling  stones,  each  May  they  reared  their  broods, 
each  June  the  clover  blossomed,  each  July  the 
wild  strawberries  grew  cool  and  red  ;  all  around 
was  youth  and  life  and  ecstasy,  and  yet  the 
stones  bore  inscriptions  in  an  unknown  lan 
guage,  and  the  very  graves  seemed  dead. 

And  lovelier  than  all  the  youth  of  Nature, 
little  Emilia  sat  there  in  the  early  light,  her 
girlish  existence  gliding  into  that  drama  of 
passion  which  is  older  than  the  buried  nations, 
older  than  time,  than  death,  than  all  things 
save  life  and  God. 


Malbone.  89 

VIII. 

TALKING   IT   OVER. 

AUNT  JANE  was  eager  to  hear  about  the 
ball,  and  called  everybody  into  her  break 
fast-parlor  the  next  morning.  She  was  still 
hesitating  about  her  bill  of  fare. 

"  I  wish  somebody  would  invent  a  new  ani 
mal,"  she  burst  forth.  "  How  those  sheep 
bleated  last  night  !  I  know  it  was  an  expres 
sion  of  shame  for  providing  such  tiresome 
food." 

"  You  must  not  be  so  carnally  minded,  dear," 
said  Kate.  "  You  must  be  very  good  and 
grateful,  and  not  care  for  your  breakfast. 
Somebody  says  that  mutton  chops  with  wit 
are  a  great  deal  better  than  turtle  without." 

"A  very  foolish  somebody,"  pronounced 
Aunt  Jane.  "  I  have  had  a  great  deal  of  wit 
in  my  life,  and  very  little  turtle.  Dear  child, 
do  not  excite  me  with  impossible  suggestions. 
There  are  dropped  eggs,  I  might  have  those. 
They  look  so  beautifully,  if  it  only  were  not 
necessary  to  eat  them.  Yes,  I  will  certainly 


90  Malbone. 

have  dropped  eggs.     I  think  Ruth  could  drop 
them  ;  she  drops  everything  else." 

"  Poor  little  Ruth  ! "  said  Kate.  "  Not  yet 
grown  up ! " 

"  She  will  never  grow  up,"  said  Aunt  Jane, 
"  but  she  thinks  she  is  a  woman  ;  she  even 
thinks  she  has  a  lover.  O  that  in  early  life  I 
had  provided  myself  with  a  pair  of  twins  from 
some  asylum  ;  then  I  should  have  had  some 
one  to  wait  on  me." 

"  Perhaps  they  would  have  been  married 
too,"  said  Kate. 

"  They  should  never  have  been  married,"  re 
torted  Aunt  Jane.  "  They  should  have  signed 
a  paper  at  five  years  old  to  do  no  such  thing. 
Yesterday  I  told  a  lady  that  I  was  enraged 
that  a  servant  should  presume  to  have  a  heart, 
and  the  woman  took  it  seriously  and  began  to 
argue  with  me.  To  think  of  living  in  a  town 
where  one  person  could  be  so  idiotic !  Such  a 
town  ought  to  be  extinguished  from  the  uni 
verse." 

"Auntie!"  said  Kate,  sternly,  "you  must 
grow  more  charitable." 

"  Must  I  ? "  said  Aunt  Jane  ;  "  it  will  not  be 
at  all  becoming.  I  have  thought  about  it ; 
often  have  I  weighed  it  in  my  mind  whether  to 


M alb  one.  91 

be  monotonously  lovely ;  but  I  have  always 
thrust  it  away.  It  must  make  life  so  tedious. 
It  is  too  late  for  me  to  change,  —  at  least,  any 
thing  about  me  but  my  countenance,  and  that 
changes  the  wrong  way.  Yet  I  feel  so  young 
and  fresh  ;  I  look  in  my  glass  every  morning 
to  see  if  I  have  not  a  new  face,  but  it  never 
comes.  I  am  not  what  is  called  well-favored. 
In  fact,  I  am  not  favored  at  all.  Tell  me  about 
the  party." 

"  What  shall  I  tell  ? "  said  Kate. 
"Tell  me  what  people  were  there,"  said  Aunt 
Jane,  "  and  how  they  were  dressed  ;  who  were 
the  happiest  and  who  the  most  miserable.  I 
think  I  would  rather  hear  about  the  most  mis 
erable,  —  at  least,  till  I  have  my  breakfast." 

"  The  most  miserable  person  I  saw,"  said 
Kate,  "  was  Mrs.  Meredith.  It  was  very  amus 
ing  to  hear  her  and  Hope  talk  at  cross-pur 
poses.  You  know  her  daughter  Helen  is  in 
Paris,  and  the  mother  seemed  very  sad  about 
her.  A  lady  was  asking  if  something  or  other 
were  true  ;  '  Too  true,'  said  Mrs.  Meredith  ; 
1  with  every  opportunity  she  has  had  no  real 
success.  It  was  not  the  poor  child's  fault. 
She  was  properly  presented  ;  but  as  yet  she 
has  had  no  success  at  all.' 


92  Malbone. 

"  Hope  looked  up,  full  of  sympathy.  She 
thought  Helen  must  be  some  disappointed 
school-teacher,  and  felt  an  interest  in  her  im 
mediately.  '  Will  there  not  be  another  exam 
ination  ?' she  asked.  'What  an  odd  phrase,' 
said  Mrs.  Meredith,  looking  rather  disdainfully 
at  Hope.  '  No,  I  suppose  we  must  give  it  up, 
if  that  is  what  you  mean.  The  only  remain 
ing  chance  is  in  the  skating.  I  had  particular 
attention  paid  to  Helen's  skating  on  that  very 
account.  How  happy  shall  I  be,  if  my  fore 
sight  is  rewarded ! ' 

"  Hope  thought  this  meant  physical  educa 
tion,  to  be  sure,  and  fancied  that  handsome 
Helen  Meredith  opening  a  school  for  calisthen 
ics  in  Paris  !  Luckily  she  did  not  say  any 
thing.  Then  the  other  lady  said,  solemnly, 
'  My  dear  Mrs.  Meredith,  it  is  too  true.  No 
one  can  tell  how  things  will  turn  out  in  soci 
ety.  How  often  do  we  see  girls  who  were  not 
looked  at  in  America,  and  yet  have  a  great 
success  in  Paris  ;  then  other  girls  go  out  who 
were  here  very  much  admired,  and  they  have 
no  success  at  all.' 

"  Hope  understood  it  all  then,  but  she  took 
it  very  calmly.  I  was  so  indignant,  I  could 
hardly  help  speaking.  I  wanted  to  say  that  it 


Malbone.  93 

was  outrageous.  The  idea  of  American  moth 
ers  training  their  children  for  exhibition  before 
what  everybody  calls  the  most  corrupt  court  in 
Europe !  Then  if  they  can  catch  the  eye  of 
the  Emperor  or  the  Empress  by  their  faces  or 
their  paces,  that  is  called  success !  " 

"  Good  Americans  when  they  die  go  to 
Paris,"  said  Philip,  "so  says  the  oracle. 
Naughty  Americans  try  it  prematurely,  and 
go  while  they  are  alive.  Then  Paris  casts 
them  out,  and  when  they  come  back,  their 
French  disrepute  is  their  stock  in  trade." 

"  I  think,"  said  the  cheerful  Hope,  "  that  it 
is  not  quite  so  bad."  Hope  always  thought 
things  not  so  bad.  She  went  on.  "  I  was  very 
dull  not  to  know  what  Mrs.  Meredith  was  talk 
ing  about.  Helen  Meredith  is  a  warm-hearted, 
generous  girl,  and  will  not  go  far  wrong,  though 
her  mother  is  not  as  wise  as  she  is  well-bred. 
But  Kate  forgets  that  the  few  hundred  people 
one  sees  here  or  at  Paris  do  not  represent  the 
nation,  after  all." 

"The  most  influential  part  of  it,"  said 
Emilia. 

"  Are  you  sure,  dear  ? "  said  her  sister.  "  I 
do  not  think  they  influence  it  half  so  much  as 
a  great  many  people  who  are  too  busy  to  go  to 


94  Malbone. 

either  place.  I  always  remember  those  hun 
dred  girls  at  the  Normal  School,  and  that  they 
were  not  at  all  like  Mrs.  Meredith,  nor  would 
they  care  to  be  like  her,  any  more  than  she 
would  wish  to  be  like  them." 

"  They  have  not  had  the  same  advantages," 
said  Emilia. 

"  Nor  the  same  disadvantages,"  said  Hope. 
"  Some  of  them  are  not  so  well  bred,  and  none 
of  them  speak  French  so  well,  for  she  speaks 
exquisitely.  But  in  all  that  belongs  to  real 
training  of  the  mind,  they  seem  to  me  supe 
rior,  and  that  is  why  I  think  they  will  have 
more  influence." 

"  None  of  them  are  rich,  though,  I  suppose," 
said  Emilia,  "  nor  of  very  nice  families,  or  they 
would  not  be  teachers.  So  they  will  not  be  so 
prominent  in  society." 

"  But  they  may  yet  become  very  prominent 
in  society,"  said  Hope,  —  "  they  or  their  pupils 
or  theii  children.  At  any  rate,  it  is  as  certain 
that  the  noblest  lives  will  have  most  influence 
in  the  end,  as  that  two  and  two  make  four." 

"  Is  that  certain  ?  "  said  Philip.  "  Perhaps 
there  are  worlds  where  two  and  two  do  not 
make  just  that  desirable  amount." 

"  I  trust  there  are,"  said  Aunt  Jane.     "  Per- 


Malbone,  95 

haps  I  was  intended  to  be  born  in  one  of  them, 
and  that  is  why  my  housekeeping  accounts 
never  add  up." 

Here  Hope  was  called  away,  and  Emilia 
saucily  murmured,  "  Sour  grapes  !  " 

"  Not  a  bit  of  it !  "  cried  Kate,  indignantly. 
"  Hope  might  have  anything  in  society  she 
wishes,  if  she  would  only  give  up  some  of  her 
own  plans,  and  let  me  choose  her  dresses,  and 
her  rich  uncles  pay  for  them.  Count  Posen 
told  me,  only  yesterday,  that  there  was  not  a 
girl  in  Oldport  with  such  an  air  as  hers." 

"  Not  Kate  herself?  "  said  Emilia,  slyly. 

"  I  ? "  said  Kate.  "  What  am  I  ?  A  silly 
chit  of  a  thing,  with  about  a  dozen  ideas  in  my 
head,  nearly  every  one  of  which  was  planted 
there  by  Hope.  I  like  the  nonsense  of  the 
world  very  well  as  it  is,  and  without  her  I 
should  have  cared  for  nothing  else.  Count 
Posen  asked  me  the  other  day,  which  country 
produced  on  the  whole  the  most  womanly 
women,  France  or  America.  He  is  one  of  the 
few  foreigners  who  expect  a  rational  answer. 
So  I  told  him  that  I  knew  very  little  of  French 
women  personally,  but  that  I  had  read  French 
novels  ever  since  I  was  born,  and  there  was 
not  a  woman  worthy  to  be  compared  with 


g6  Malbone. 

Hope  in  any  of  them,  except  Consuelo,  and 
even  she  told  lies." 

"  Do  not  begin  upon  Hope,"  said  Aunt 
Jane.  "  It  is  the  only  subject  on  which  Kate 
can  be  tedious.  Tell  me  about  the  dresses. 
Were  people  over-dressed  or  under-dressed  ? " 

"  Under-dressed,"  said  Phil.  "  Miss  Ingle- 
side  had  a  half-inch  strip  of  muslin  over  her 
shoulder." 

Here  Philip  followed  Hope  out  of  the  room, 
and  Emilia  presently  followed  him. 

"  Tell  on  !  "  said  Aunt  Jane.  "  How  did 
Philip  enjoy  himself?" 

"  He  is  easily  amused,  you  know,"  said  Kate. 
"  He  likes  to  observe  people,  and  to  shoot  folly 
as  it  flies." 

"  It  does  not  fly,"  retorted  the  elder  lady. 
"  I  wish  it  did.  You  can  shoot  it  sitting,  at 
least  where  Philip  is." 

"  Auntie,"  said  Kate,  "  tell  me  truly  your 
objection  to  Philip.  I  think  you  did  not  like 
his  parents.  Had  he  not  a  good  mother  ?  " 

"  She  was  good,"  said  Aunt  Jane,  reluc 
tantly,  "but  it  was  that  kind  of  goodness 
which  is  quite  offensive." 

"  And  did  you  know  his  father  well  ?  " 

"  Know  him  !  "  exclaimed  Aunt  Jane.     "  I 


Malbone.  97 

should  think  I  did.  I  have  sat  up  all  night  to 
hate  him." 

"  That  was  very  wrong,"  said  Kate,  deci 
sively.  "  You  do  not  mean  that.  You  only 
mean  that  you  did  not  admire  him  very 
much." 

"  I  never  admired  a  dozen  people  in  my  life, 
Kate.  I  once  made  a  list  of  them.  There 
were  six  women,  three  men,  and  a  Newfound 
land  dog." 

"What  happened  ?"  said  Kate.  "The  Is 
raelites  died  after  Pharaoh,  or  somebody, 
numbered  them.  Did  anything  happen  to 
yours  ? " 

"  It  was  worse  with  mine,"  said  Aunt  Jane. 
"  I  grew  tired  of  some  and  others  I  forgot,  till 
at  last  there  was  nobody  left  but  the  dog,  and 
he  died." 

"  Was  Philip's  father  one  of  them  ? " 

"  No." 

"  Tell  me  about  him,"  said  Kate,  firmly. 

"  Ruth,"  said  the  elder  lady,  as  her  young 
handmaiden  passed  the  door  with  her  wonted 
demureness,  "  come  here  ;  no,  get  me  a  glass 
of  water.  Kate  !  I  shall  die  of  that  girl.  She 
does  some  idiotic  thing,  and  then  she  looks 
in  here  with  that  contented,  beaming  look. 
5  r- 


98  Malbone. 

There  is  an  air  of  baseless  happiness  about 
her  that  drives  me  nearly  frantic." 

"Never  mind  about  that,"  persisted  Kate. 
"Tell  me  about  Philip's  father.  What  was 
the  matter  with  him  ? " 

"  My  dear,"  Aunt  Jane  at  last  answered,  — 
with  that  fearful  moderation  to  which  she 
usually  resorted  when  even  her  stock  of  su 
perlatives  was  exhausted,  —  "  he  belonged  to 
a  family  for  whom  truth  possessed  even  less 
than  the  usual  attractions." 

This  neat  epitaph  implied  the  erection  of  a 
final  tombstone  over  the  whole  race,  and  Kate 
asked  no  more. 

Meantime  Malbone  sat  at  the  western  door 
with  Harry,  and  was  running  on  with  one 
of  his  tirades,  half  jest,  half  earnest,  against 
American  society. 

"In  America,"  he  said,  "everything  which 
does  not  tend  to  money  is  thought  to  be 
wasted,  as  our  Quaker  neighbor  thinks  the 
children's  croquet-ground  wasted,  because  it 
is  not  a  potato  field." 

"  Not  just !  "  cried  Harry.  "  Nowhere  is 
there  more  respect  for  those  who  give  their 
lives  to  intellectual  pursuits." 

"  What     are     intellectual    pursuits  ? "    said 


Malbone.  99 

Philip.  "  Editing  daily  newspapers  ?  Teach 
ing  arithmetic  to  children  ?  I  see  no  others 
flourishing  hereabouts." 

"  Science  and  literature,"  answered  Harry. 

"  Who  cares  for  literature  in  America,"  said 
Philip,  "after  a  man  rises  three  inches  above 
the  newspaper  level  ?  Nobody  reads  Thoreau ; 
only  an  insignificant  fraction  read  Emerson, 
or  even  Hawthorne.  The  majority  of  people 
have  hardly  even  heard  their  names.  What 
inducement  has  a  writer  ?  Nobody  has  any 
weight  in  America  who  is  not  in  Congress, 
and  nobody  gets  into  Congress  without  the 
necessity  of  bribing  or  button-holing  men 
whom  he  despises." 

"  But  you  do  not  care  for  public  life  ? "  said 
Harry. 

"  No,"  said  Malbone,  "  therefore  this  does  not 
trouble  me,  but  it  troubles  you.  I  am  con 
tent.  My  digestion  is  good.  I  can  always 
amuse  myself.  Why  are  you  not  satisfied  ? " 

"  Because  you  are  not,"  said  Harry.  "  You 
are  dissatisfied  with  men,  and  so  you  care 
chiefly  to  amuse  yourself  with  women  and 
children." 

"  I  dare  say,"  said  Malbone,  carelessly. 
"They  are  usually  less  ungraceful  and  talk 
better  grammar." 


TOO  Malbone. 

"  But  American  life  does  not  mean  grace 
nor  grammar.  We  are  all  living  for  the 
future.  Rough  work  now,  and  the  graces 
by  and  by." 

"  That  is  what  we  Americans  always  say," 
retorted  Philip.  "  Everything  is  in  the  future. 
What  guaranty  have  we  for  that  future  ?  I  see 
none.  We  make  no  progress  towards  the 
higher  arts,  except  in  greater  quantities  of 
mediocrity.  We  sell  larger  editions  of  poor 
books.  Our  artists  fill  larger  frames  and  travel 
farther  for  materials ;  but  a  ten-inch  canvas 
would  tell  all  they  have  to  say." 

"  The  wrong  point  of  view,"  said  Hal.  "  If 
you  begin  with  high  art,  you  begin  at  the 
wrong  end.  The  first  essential  for  any  nation 
is  to  put  the  mass  of  the  people  above  the 
reach  of  want.  We  are  all  usefully  employed, 
if  we  contribute  to  that." 

"  So  is  the  cook  usefully  employed  while 
preparing  dinner,"  said  Philip.  "  Neverthe 
less,  I  do  not  wish  to  live  in  the  kitchen." 

"  Yet  you  always  admire  your  own  country," 
said  Harry,  "  so  long  as  you  are  in  Europe." 

"  No  doubt,"  said  Philip.  "  I  do  not  object  to 
the  kitchen  at  that  distance.  And  to  tell  the 
truth,  America  looks  well  from  Europe.  No 


Malbone.  101 

culture,  no  art  seems  so  noble  as  this  far-off 
spectacle  of  a  self-governing  people.  The  en 
thusiasm  lasts  till  one's  return.  Then  there 
seems  nothing  here  but  to  work  hard  and 
keep  out  of  mischief." 

"  That  is  something,"  said  Harry. 

"  A  good  deal  in  America,"  said  Phil. 
"We  talk  about  the  immorality  of  older 
countries.  Did  you  ever  notice  that  no  class 
of  men  are  so  apt  to  take  to  drinking  as 
highly  cultivated  Americans  ?  It  is  a  very 
demoralizing  position,  when  one's  tastes  out 
grow  one's  surroundings.  Positively,  I  think 
a  man  is  more  excusable  for  coveting  his 
neighbor's  wife  in  America  than  in  Europe, 
because  there  is  so  little  else  to  covet." 

"  Malbone  !  "  said  Hal,  "  what  has  got  into 
you  ?  Do  you  know  what  things  you  are  say- 
ing?" 

"  Perfectly,"  was  the  unconcerned  reply.  "  I 
am  not  arguing ;  I  am  only  testifying.  I 
know  that  in  Paris,  for  instance,  I  myself  have 
no  temptations.  Art  and  history  are  so  de 
lightful,  I  absolutely  do  not  care  for  the  so 
ciety  even  of  women  ;  but  here,  where  there 
is  nothing  to  do,  one  must  have  some  stimu 
lus,  and  for  me,  who  hate  drinking,  they  are, 
at  least,  a  more  refined  excitement." 


IO2  Malbonc. 

"  More  dangerous,"  said  Hal.  "  Infinitely 
more  dangerous,  in  the  morbid  way  in  which 
you  look  at  life.  What  have  these  sickly  fan 
cies  to  do  with  the  career  that  opens  to  every 
brave  man  in  a  great  nation  ? " 

"  They  have  everything  to  do  with  it,  and 
there  are  many  for  whom  there  is  no  career. 
As  the  nation  develops,  it  must  produce  men 
of  high  culture.  Now  there  is  no  place  for 
them  except  as  bookkeepers  or  pedagogues  or 
newspaper  reporters.  Meantime  the  incessant 
unintellectual  activity  is  only  a  sublime  bore 
to  those  who  stand  aside." 

"Then  why  stand  aside?"  persisted  the 
downright  Harry. 

"  I  have  no  place  in  it  but  a  lounging- 
place,"  said  Malbone.  "  I  do  not  wish  to 
chop  blocks  with  a  razor.  I  envy  those  men, 
born  mere  Americans,  with  no  ambition  in 
life  but  to  '  swing  a  railroad  '  as  they  say  at 
the  West.  Every  morning  I  hope  to  wake  up 
like  them  in  the  fear  of  God  and  the  love  of 
money." 

"  You  may  as  well  stop,"  said  Harry,  color 
ing  a  little.  "  Malbone,  you  used  to  be  my 
ideal  man  in  my  boyhood,  but "  — 

"  I  am  glad  we  have  got  beyond  that,"  inter- 


Malbone.  103 

rupted  the  other,  cheerily,  "  I  am  only  an  idler 
in  the  land.  Meanwhile,  I  have  my  little  in 
terests, —  read,  write,  sketch  —  " 

"  Flirt  ? "  put  in  Hal,  with  growing  displeas 
ure. 

"Not  now,"  said  Phil,  patting  his  shoulder, 
with  imperturbable  good-nature.  "  Our  be 
loved  has  cured  me  of  that.  He  who  has 
won  the  pearl  dives  no  more." 

"  Do  not  let  us  speak  of  Hope,"  said  Harry. 
"  Everything  that  you  have  been  asserting 
Hope's  daily  life  disproves." 

"  That  may  be,"  answered  Malbone,  heartily. 
"  But,  Hal,  I  never  flirted  ;  I  always  despised 
it.  It  was  always  a  grande  passion  with  me, 
or  what  I  took  for  such.  I  loved  to  be  loved, 
I  suppose  ;  and  there  was  always  something 
new  and  fascinating  to  be  explored  in  a  human 
heart,  that  is,  a  woman's." 

"  Some  new  temple  to  profane  ? "  asked 
Hal,  severely. 

"  Never  ! "  said  Philip.  "  I  never  profaned 
it.  If  I  deceived,  I  shared  the  deception,  at 
least  for  a  time  ;  and,  as  for  sensuality,  I  had 
none  in  me." 

"  Did  you  have  nothing  worse  ?  Rousseau 
ends  where  Tom  Jones  begins." 


104  Malbone. 

"My  temperament  saved  me,"  said  Philip. 
"A  woman  is  not  a  woman  to  me,  without 
personal  refinement." 

"Just  what  Rousseau  said,"  replied  Harry. 

"I  act  upon  it,"  answered  Malbone.  "No 
one  dislikes  Blanche  Ingleside  and  her  demi 
monde  more  than  I." 

"  You  ought  not,"  was  the  retort.  "  You 
help  to  bring  other  girls  to  her  level." 

"  Whom  ?"  said  Malbone,  startled. 

"  Emilia." 

"  Emilia  ? "  repeated  the  other,  coloring 
crimson.  "  I,  who  have  warned  her  against 
Blanche's  society." 

"  And  have  left  her  no  other  resource,"  said 
Harry,  coloring  still  more.  "  Malbone,  you 
have  gained  (unconsciously  of  course)  too 
much  power  over  that  girl,  and  the  only  effect 
of  it  is,  to  keep  her  in  perpetual  excitement. 
So  she  seeks  Blanche,  as  she  would  any  other 
strong  stimulant.  Hope  does  not  seem  to 
have  discovered  this,  but  Kate  has,  and  I 
have." 

Hope  came  in,  and  Harry  went  out.  The 
next  day  he  came  to  Philip  and  apologized 
most  warmly  for  his  unjust  and  inconsiderate 
words.  Malbone,  always  generous,  bade  him 


Malbone.  105 

think  no  more  about  it,  and  Harry  for  that 
day  reverted  strongly  to  his  first  faith.  "  So 
noble,  so  high-toned,"  he  said  to  Kate.  In 
deed,  a  man  never  appears  more  magnanimous 
than  in  forgiving  a  friend  who  has  told  him 
the  truth. 


io6  M alb  one. 


IX. 

DANGEROUS    WAYS. 

JT  was  true  enough  what  Harry  had  said. 
Philip  Malbone's  was  that  perilous  Rous 
seau-like  temperament,  neither  sincere  enough 
for  safety,  nor  false  enough  to  alarm  ;  the  win 
ning  tenderness  that  thrills  and  softens  at  the 
mere  neighborhood  of  a  woman,  and  fascinates 
by  its  reality  those  whom  no  hypocrisy  can 
deceive.  It  was  a  nature  half  amiable,  half 
voluptuous,  that  disarmed  others,  seeming  it 
self  unarmed.  He  was  never  wholly  ennobled 
by  passion,  for  it  never  touched  him  deeply 
enough  ;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  he  was  not 
hardened  by  the  habitual  attitude  of  passion, 
for  he  was  never  really  insincere.  Sometimes 
it  seemed  as  if  nothing  stood  between  him  and 
litter  profligacy  but  a  little  indolence,  a  little 
kindness,  and  a  good  deal  of  caution. 

"There  seems  no  such  thing  as  serious  re 
pentance  in  me,"  he  had  once  said  to  Kate, 
two  years  before,  when  she  had  upbraided  him 
with  some  desperate  flirtation  which  had 


Malbone.  107 

looked  as  if  he  would  carry  it  as  far  as  gentle 
men  did  under  King  Charles  II.  "  How  does 
remorse  begin  ? " 

"  Where  you  are  beginning,"  said  Kate. 

"  I  do  not  perceive  that,"  he  answered. 
"  My  conscience  seems,  after  all,  to  be  only  a 
form  of  good-nature.  I  like  to  be  stirred  by 
emotion,  I  suppose,  and  I  like  to  study  char 
acter.  But  I  can  always  stop  when  it  is  evi 
dent  that  I  shall  cause  pain  to  somebody.  Is 
there  any  other  motive  ?  " 

"  In  other  words,"  said  she,  "  you  apply  the 
match,  and  then  turn  your  back  on  the  burn 
ing  house." 

.  Philip  colored.  "  How  unjust  you  are  !  Of 
course,  we  all  like  to  play  with  fire,  but  I 
always  put  it  out  before  it  can  spread.  Do 
you  think  I  have  no  feeling?" 

Kate  stopped  there,  I  suppose.  Even  she 
always  stopped  soon,  if  she  undertook  to  in 
terfere  with  Malbone.  This  charming  Alcibi- 
ades  always  convinced  them,  after  the  wrest 
ling  was  over,  that  he  had  not  been  thrown. 

The  only  exception  to  this  was  in  the  case 
of  Aunt  Jane.  If  she  had  anything  in  com 
mon  with  Philip,  —  and  there  was  a  certain 
element  of  ingenuous  unconsciousness  in  which 


io8  Malbone. 

they  were  not  so  far  unlike,  —  it  only  placed 
them  in  the  more  complete  antagonism.  Per 
haps  if  two  beings  were  in  absolutely  no  respect 
alike,  they  never  could  meet  even  for  purposes 
of  hostility ;  there  must  be  some  common 
ground  from  which  the  aversion  may  proceed. 
Moreover,  in  this  case  Aunt  Jane  utterly  dis 
believed  in  Malbone  because  she  had  reason  to 
disbelieve  in  his  father,  and  the  better  she  knew 
the  son  the  more  she  disliked  the  father  retro 
spectively. 

Philip  was  apt  to  be  very  heedless  of  such 
aversions,  —  indeed,  he  had  few  to  heed,  —  but 
it  was  apparent  that  Aunt  Jane  was  the  only 
person  with  whom  he  was  not  quite  at  ease. 
Still,  the  solicitude  did  not  trouble  him  very 
much,  for  he  instinctively  knew  that  it  was  not 
his  particular  actions  which  vexed  her,  so  much 
as  his  very  temperament  and  atmosphere,  — 
things  not  to  be  changed.  So  he  usually  went 
his  way;  and  if  he  sometimes  felt  one  of  her 
sharp  retorts,  could  laugh  it  off  that  day  and 
sleep  it  off  before  the  next  morning. 

For  you  may  be  sure  that  Philip  was  very 
little  troubled  by  inconvenient  memories.  He 
never  had  to  affect  forgetfulness  of  anything. 
The  past  slid  from  him  so  easily,  he  forgot 


Malbone.  109 

even  to  try  to  forget.  He  liked  to  quote  from 
Emerson,  "What  have  I  to  do  with  repent 
ance  ?  "  "  What  have  my  yesterday's  errors," 
he  would  say,  "  to  do  with  the  life  of  to-day  ? " 

"  Everything,"  interrupted  Aunt  Jane,  "  for 
you  will  repeat  them  to-day,  if  you  can." 

"  Not  at  all,"  persisted  he,  accepting  as  con 
versation  what  she  meant  as  a  stab.  "  I  may, 
indeed,  commit  greater  errors,"  —  here  she 
grimly  nodded,  as  if  she  had  no  doubt  of  it,  — 
"but  never  just  the  same.  To-day  must  take 
thought  for  itself." 

"  I  wish  it  would,"  she  said,  gently,  and  then 
went  on  with  her  own  thoughts  while  he  was 
silent.  Presently  she  broke  out  again  in  her 
impulsive  way. 

"  Depend  upon  it,"  she  said,  "  there  is  very 
little  direct  retribution  in  this  world." 

Phil  looked  up,  quite  pleased  at  her  indors 
ing  one  of  his  favorite  views.  She  looked,  as 
she  always  did,  indignant  at  having  said  any 
thing  to  please  him. 

"Yes,"  said  she,  "it  is  the  indirect  retribu 
tion  that  crushes.  I  've  seen  enough  of  that, 
God  knows.  Kate,  give  me  my  thimble." 

Malbone  had  that  smooth  elasticity  of  sur 
face  which  made  even  Aunt  Jane's  strong  fin- 


1 10  Malbonc. 

gers  slip  from  him  as  they  might  from  a  fish,  or 
from  the  soft,  gelatinous  stem  of  the  water-tar 
get.  Even  in  this  case  he  only  laughed  good- 
naturedly,  and  went  out,  whistling  like  a 
mocking-bird,  to  call  the  children  round  him. 
Toward  the  more  wayward  and  impulsive 
Emilia  the  good  lady  was  far  more  merciful. 
With  all  Aunt  Jane's  formidable  keenness,  she 
was  a  little  apt  to  be  disarmed  by  youth  and 
beauty,  and  had  no  very  stern  retributions 
except  for  those  past  middle  age.  Emilia  es 
pecially  charmed  her  while  she  repelled.  There 
was  no  getting  beyond  a  certain  point  with 
this  strange  girl,  any  more  than  with  Philip  ; 
but  her  depths  tantalized,  while  his  apparent 
shallows  were  only  vexatious.  Emilia  was  usu 
ally  sweet,  winning,  cordial,  and  seemed  ready 
to  glide  into  one's  heart  as  softly  as  she  glided 
into  the  room  ;  she  liked  to  please,  and  found 
it  very  easy.  Yet  she  left  the  impression  that 
this  smooth  and  delicate  loveliness  went  but 
an  inch  beyond  the  surface,  like  the  soft,  thin 
foam  that  enamels  yonder  tract  of  ocean,  be 
longs  to  it,  is  a  part  of  it,  yet  is,  after  all,  but  a 
bequest  of  tempests,  and  covers  only  a  dark 
abyss  of  crossing  currents  and  desolate  tangles 
of  rootless  kelp.  Everybody  was  drawn  to 


Malbone.  1 1 1 

her,  yet  not  a  soul  took  any  comfort  in  her. 
Her  very  voice  had  in  it  a  despairing  sweet 
ness,  that  seemed  far  in  advance  of  her  actual 
history  ;  it  was  an  anticipated  Miserere,  a  per 
petual  dirge,  where  nothing  had  yet  gone 
down.  So  Aunt  Jane,  who  was  wont  to  be 
perfectly  decisive  in  her  treatment  of  every 
human  being,  was  fluctuating  and  inconsistent 
with  Emilia.  She  could  not  help  being  fasci 
nated  by  the  motherless  child,  and  yet  scorned 
herself  for  even  the  doubting  love  she  gave. 

"  Only  think,  auntie,"  said  Kate,  "  how  you 
kissed  Emilia,  yesterday  ! " 

"  Of  course  I  did,"  she  remorsefully  owned. 
"  I  have  kissed  her  a  great  many  times  too 
often.  I  never  will  kiss  her  again.  There  is 
nothing  but  sorrow  to  be  found  in  loving  her, 
and  her  heart  is  no  larger  than  her  feet.  To 
day  she  was  not  even  pretty !  If  it  were  not 
for  her  voice,  I  think  I  should  never  wish  to 
see  her  again." 

But  when  that  soft,  pleading  voice  came 
once  more,  and  Emilia  asked  perhaps  for  lun 
cheon,  in  tones  fit  for  Ophelia,  Aunt  Jane  in 
stantly  yielded.  One  might  as  well  have  tried 
to  enforce  indignation  against  the  Babes  in  the 
Wood. 


1 1 2  Malbone. 

This  perpetual  mute  appeal  was  further 
strengthened  by  a  peculiar  physical  habit  in 
Emilia,  which  first  alarmed  the  household,  but 
soon  ceased  to  inspire  terror.  She  fainted 
very  easily,  and  had  attacks  at  long  intervals 
akin  to  faintness,  and  lasting  for  several  hours. 
The  physicians  pronounced  them  cataleptic  in 
their  nature,  saying  that  they  brought  no  dan 
ger,  and  that  she  would  certainly  outgrow 
them.  They  were  sometimes  produced  by  fa 
tigue,  sometimes  by  excitement,  but  they 
brought  no  agitation  with  them,  nor  any  de 
velopment  of  abnormal  powers.  They  simply 
wrapped  her  in  a  profound  repose,  from  which 
no  effort  could  rouse  her,  till  the  trance  passed 
by.  Her  eyes  gradually  closed,  her  voice  died 
away,  and  all  movement  ceased,  save  that  her 
eyelids  sometimes  trembled  without  opening, 
and  sweet  evanescent  expressions  chased  each 
other  across  her  face,  —  the  shadows  of  thoughts 
unseen.  For  a  time  she  seemed  to  distinguish 
the  touch  of  different  persons  by  preference  or 
pain  ;  but  soon  even  this  sign  of  recognition 
vanished,  and  the  household  could  only  wait 
and  watch,  while  she  sank  into  deeper  and  yet 
deeper  repose. 

There   was  something   inexpressibly  sweet, 


Malbone.  113 

appealing,  and  touching  in  this  impenetrable 
slumber,  when  it  was  at  its  deepest.  She 
looked  so  young,  so  delicate,  so  lovely ;  it  was 
as  if  she  had  entered  into  a  shrine,  and  some 
sacred  curtain  had  been  dropped  to  shield  her 
from  all  the  cares  and  perplexities  of  life.  She 
lived,  she  breathed,  and  yet  all  the  storms  of 
life  could  but  beat  against  her  powerless,  as 
the  waves  beat  on  the  shore.  Safe  in  this 
beautiful  semblance  of  death,  —  her  pulse  a 
i:'ttle  accelerated,  her  rich  color  only  softened, 
her  eyelids  drooping,  her  exquisite  mouth 
curved  into  the  sweetness  it  had  lacked  in 
waking,  —  she  lay  unconscious  and  supreme, 
the  temporary  monarch  of  the  household,  en 
tranced  upon  her  throne.  A  few  hours  having 
passed,  she  suddenly  waked,  and  was  a  self- 
willed,  passionate  girl  once  more.  When  she 
spoke,  it  was  with  a  voice  wholly  natural  ;  she 
had  no  recollection  of  what  had  happened,  and 
no  curiosity  to  learn. 


H 


1 14  Malbone. 

X. 

REMONSTRANCES. 

IT  had  been  a  lovely  summer  day,  with  a 
tinge  of  autumnal  coolness  toward  night 
fall,  ending  in  what  Aunt  Jane  called  a  "quince- 
jelly  sunset."  Kate  and  Emilia  sat  upon  the 
Blue  Rocks,  earnestly  talking. 

"  Promise,  Emilia!"  said  Kate. 

Emilia  said  nothing. 

"  Remember,"  continued  Kate,  "  he  is  Hope's 
betrothed.  Promise,  promise,  promise  !  " 

Emilia  looked  into  Kate's  face  and  saw  it 
flushed  with  a  generous  eagerness,  that  called 
forth  an  answering  look  in  her.  She  tried  to 
speak,  and  the  words  died  into  silence.  There 
was  a  pause,  while  each  watched  the  other. 

When  one  soul  is  grappling  with  another  for 
life,  such  silence  may  last  an  instant  too  long  ; 
and  Kate  soon  felt  her  grasp  slipping.  Mo 
mentarily  the  spell  relaxed.  Other  thoughts 
swelled  up,  and  Emilia's  eyes  began  to  wander  ; 
delicious  memories  stole  in,  of  walks  through 
blossoming  paths  with  Malbone,  —  of  lingering 


Malbone.  1 1 5 

steps,  half-stifled  words  and  sentences  left  un 
finished  ;  —  then,  alas  !  of  passionate  caresses, 
—  other  blossoming  paths  that  only  showed 
the  way  to  sin,  but  had  never  quite  led  her 
there,  she  fancied.  There  was  so  much  to  tell, 
more  than  could  ever  be  told  to  Kate,  infinite 
ly  more  than  could  ever  be  explained  or  justi 
fied.  Moment  by  moment,  farther  and  farther 
strayed  the  wandering  thoughts,  and  when  the 
poor  child  looked  in  Kate's  face  again,  the  mist 
between  them  seemed  to  have  grown  wide  and 
dense,  as  if  neither  eyes  nor  words  nor  hands 
could  ever  meet  again.  When  she  spoke  it 
was  to  say  something  evasive  and  unimportant, 
and  her  voice  was  as  one  from  the  grave. 

In  truth,  Philip  had  given  Emilia  his  heart 
to  play  with  at  Neuchatel,  that  he  might  be 
guile  her  from  an  attachment  they  had  all 
regretted.  The  device  succeeded.  The  toy 
once  in  her  hand,  the  passionate  girl  had  kept 
it,  had  clung  to  him  with  all  her  might ;  he 
could  not  shake  her  off.  Nor  was  this  the 
worst,  for  to  his  dismay  he  found  himself  re 
sponding  to  her  love  with  a  self-abandonment 
of  ardor  for  which  all  former  loves  had  been 
but  a  cool  preparation.  He  had  not  intended 
this  ;  it  seemed  hardly  his  fault  :  his  intentions 


n  6  Malbone. 

had  been  good,  or  at  least  not  bad.  This 
piquant  and  wonderful  fruit  of  nature,  this 
girlish  soul,  he  had  merely  touched  it  and  it 
was  his.  Its  mere  fragrance  was  intoxicating. 
Good  God  !  what  should  he  do  with  it  ? 

No  clear  answer  coming,  he  had  drifted 
on  with  that  terrible  facility  for  which  years 
of  self-indulged  emotion  had  prepared  him. 
Each  step,  while  it  was  intended  to  be  the  last, 
only  made  some  other  last  step  needful. 

He  had  begun  wrong,  for  he  had  concealed 
his  engagement,  fancying  that  he  could  secure 
a  stronger  influence  over  this  young  girl  with 
out  the  knowledge.  He  had  come  to  her 
simply  as  a  friend  of  her  Transatlantic  kin 
dred  ;  and  she,  who  was  always  rather  indiffer 
ent  to  them,  asked  no  questions,  nor  made  the 
discovery  till  too  late.  Then,  indeed,  she  had 
burst  upon  him  with  an  impetuous  despair  that 
had  alarmed  him.  He  feared,  not  that  she 
would  do  herself  any  violence,  for  she  had  a 
childish  dread  of  death,  but  that  she  would 
show  some  desperate  animosity  toward  Hope, 
whenever  they  should  meet.  After  a  long 
struggle,  he  had  touched,  not  her  sense  of  jus 
tice,  for  she  had  none,  but  her  love  for  him  ; 
he  had  aroused  her  tenderness  and  her  pride. 


Malbone.  1 1 7 

Without  his  actual  assurance,  she  yet  believed 
that  he  would  release  himself  in  some  way 
from  his  betrothal,  and  love  only  her. 

Malbone  had  fortunately  great  control  over,. 
Emilia  when  near  her,  and  could  thus  keep  the 
sight  of  this  stormy  passion  from  the  pure  and 
unconscious  Hope.  But  a  new  distress  opened 
before  him,  from  the  time  when  he  again 
touched  Hope's  hand.  The  close  intercourse 
of  the  voyage  had  given  him  for  the  time 
almost  a  surfeit  of  the  hot-house  atmosphere 
of  Emilia's  love.  The  first  contact  of  Hope's 
cool,  smooth  fingers,  the  soft  light  of  her  clear 
eyes,  the  breezy  grace  of  her  motions,  the  rose- 
odors  that  clung  around  her,  brought  back  all 
his  early  passion.  Apart  from  this  voluptuous 
ness  of  the  heart  into  which  he  had  fallen, 
Malbone's  was  a  simple  and  unspoiled  nature  ; 
he  had  no  vices,  and  had  always  won  populari 
ty  too  easily  to  be  obliged  to  stoop  for  it  ;  so 
all  that  was  noblest  in  him  paid  allegiance  to 
Hope.  From  the  moment  they  again  met,  his 
wayward  heart  reverted  to  her.  He  had  been 
in  a  dream,  he  said  to  himself;  he  would  con 
quer  it  and  be  only  hers  ;  he  would  go  away 
with  her  into  the  forests  and  green  fields  she 
loved,  or  he  would  share  in  the  life  of  useful- 


u8  Malbonc. 

ness  for  which  she  yearned.  But  then,  what 
was  he  to  do  with  this  little  waif  from  the 
heart's  tropics,  —  once  tampered  with,  in  an 
hour  of  mad  dalliance,  and  now  adhering  in 
separably  to  his  life  ?  Supposing  him  ready 
to  separate  from  her,  could  she  be  detached 
from  him  ? 

Kate's  anxieties,  when  she  at  last  hinted 
them  to  Malbone,  only  sent  him  further  into 
revery.  "  How  is  it,"  he  asked  himself,  "  that 
when  I  only  sought  to  love  and  be  loved,  I 
have  thus  entangled  myself  in  the  fate  of 
others  ?  How  is  one's  heart  to  be  governed  ? 
Is  there  any  such  governing  ?  Mile.  Clairon 
complained  that,  so  soon  as  she  became  seri 
ously  attached  to  any  one,  she  was  sure  to 
meet  somebody  else  whom  she  liked  better. 
Have  human  hearts,"  he  said,  "  or  at  least,  has 
my  heart,  no  more  stability  than  this  ? " 

It  did  not  help  the  matter  when  Emilia  went 
to  stay  awhile  with  Mrs.  Meredith.  The  event 
came  about  in  this  way.  Hope  and  Kate  had 
been  to  a  dinner-party,  and  were  as  usual  re 
citing  their  experiences  to  Aunt  Jane. 

"  Was  it  pleasant  ?  "  said  that  sympathetic 
lady. 

"  It  was  one  of  those  dreadfully  dark  dining- 


Malbonc.  1 19 

rooms,"  said  Hope,  seating  herself  at  the  open 
window. 

"  Why  do  they  make  them  look  so  like 
tombs  ?  "  said  Kate. 

"  Because,"  said  her  aunt,  "  most  Americans 
pass  from  them  to  the  tomb,  after  eating  such 
indigestible  things.  There  is  a  wish  for  a  gen 
tle  transition." 

"Aunt  Jane,"  said  Hope,  "Mrs.  Meredith 
asks  to  have  a  little  visit  from  Emilia.  Do  you 
think  she  had  better  go  ?  " 

"  Mrs.  Meredith  ? "  asked  Aunt  Jane.  "  Is 
that  woman  alive  yet  ?  " 

"  Why,  auntie  !  "  said  Kate.  "  We  were  talk 
ing  about  her  only  a  week  ago." 

"  Perhaps  so,"  conceded  Aunf  Jane,  reluc 
tantly.  "  But  it  seems  to  me  she  has  great 
length  of  days  !  " 

"  How  very  improperly  you  are  talking, 
dear!"  said  Kate.  "She  is  not  more  than 
forty,  and  you  are  —  " 

"  Fifty-four,"  interrupted  the  other. 

"  Then  she  has  not  seen  nearly  so  many  days 
as  you." 

"  But  they  are  such  long  days !  That  is 
what  I  must  have  meant.  One  of  her  days  is 
as  Ions:  as  three  of  mine.  She  is  so  tiresome ! " 


1 20  Malbone. 

"  She  does  not  tire  you  very  often,"  said 
Kate. 

"  She  comes  once  a  year,"  said  Aunt  Jane. 
"  And  then  it  is  not  to  see  me.  She  comes 
out  of  respect  to  the  memory  of  my  great-aunt, 
with  whom  Talleyrand  fell  in  love,  when  he 
was  in  America,  before  Mrs.  Meredith  was 
born.  Yes,  Emilia  may  as  well  go." 

So  Emilia  went.  To  provide  her  with  com 
panionship,  Mrs.  Meredith  kindly  had  Blanche 
Ingleside  to  stay  there  also.  Blanche  stayed 
at  different  houses  a  good  deal.  To  do  her 
justice,  she  was  very  good  company,  when  put 
upon  her  best  behavior,  and  beyond  the  reach 
of  her  demure  mamma.  She  was  always  in 
spirits,  often  goooVnatured,  and  kept  everything 
in  lively  motion,  you  may  be  sure.  She  found 
it  not  unpleasant,  in  rich  houses,  to  escape  some 
of  those  little  domestic  parsimonies  which  the 
world  saw  not  in  her  own  ;  and  to  secure  this 
felicity  she  could  sometimes  lay  great  restraints 
upon  herself,  for  as  much  as  twenty-four  hours. 
She  seemed  a  little  out  of  place,  certainly, 
amid  the  precise  proprieties  of  Mrs.  Mere 
dith's  establishment.  But  Blanche  and  her 
mother  still  held  their  place  in  society,  and  it 
was  nothing  to  Mrs.  Meredith  who  came  to 


Malbone.  121 

her   doors,  but   only   from    what  other  doors 
they  came. 

She  would  have  liked  to  see  all  "the  best 
houses  "  connected  by  secret  galleries  or  under 
ground  passages,  of  which  she  and  a  few  others 
should  hold  the  keys.  A  guest  properly  pre» 
sented  could  then  go  the  rounds  of  all  uner 
ringly,  leaving  his  card  at  each,  while  improper 
acquaintances  in  vain  howled  for  admission  at 
the  outer  wall.  For  the  rest,  her  ideal  of  so 
cial  happiness  was  a  series  of  perfectly  ordered 
entertainments,  at  each  of  which  there  should 
be  precisely  the  same  guests,  the  same  topics, 
the  same  supper,  and  the  same  ennui. 


122  Malbone. 

XI. 

DESCENSUS   AVERNI. 

MALBONE  stood  one  morning  on  the 
pier  behind  the  house.  A  two  days' 
fog  was  dispersing.  The  southwest  breeze 
rippled  the  deep  blue  water  ;  sailboats,  blue, 
red,  and  green,  were  darting  about  like  white- 
winged  butterflies  ;  sloops  passed  and  repassed, 
cutting  the  air  with  the  white  and  slender 
points  of  their  gaff-topsails.  The  liberated 
sunbeams  spread  and  penetrated  everywhere, 
and  even  came  up  to  play  (reflected  from  the 
water)  beneath  the  shadowy,  overhanging 
counters  of  dark  vessels.  Beyond,  the  atmos 
phere  was  still  busy  in  rolling  away  its  vapors, 
brushing  the  last  gray  fringes  from  the  low 
hills,  and  leaving  over  them  only  the  thinnest 
aerial  veil.  Farther  down  the  bay,  the  pale 
tower  of  the  crumbling  fort  was  now  shrouded, 
now  revealed,  then  hung  with  floating  lines  of 
vapor  as  with  banners. 

Hope  came  down  on  the  pier  to  Malbone, 
who  was  looking  at  the  boats.     He  saw  with 


Ma! bone.  123 

surprise  that  her  calm  brow  was  a  little  cloud 
ed,  her  lips  compressed,  and  her  eyes  full  of 
tears. 

"  Philip,"  she  said,  abruptly,  "  do  you  love 
me  ? " 

"  Do  you  doubt  it  ?  "  said  he,  smiling,  a  little 
uneasily. 

Fixing  her  eyes  upon  him,  she  said,  more 
seriously :  "  There  is  a  more  important  ques 
tion,  Philip.  Tell  me  truly,  do  you  care  about 
Emilia?" 

He  started  at  the  words,  and  looked  eagerly 
in  her  face  for  an  explanation.  Her  expres 
sion  only  showed  the  most  anxious  solicitude. 

For  one  moment  the  wild  impulse  came  up 
in  his  mind  to  put  an  entire  trust  in  this  truth 
ful  woman,  and  tell  her  all.  Then  the  habit  of 
concealment  came  back  to  him,  the  dull  hope 
lessness  of  a  divided  duty,  and  the  impossibil 
ity  of  explanations.  How  could  he  justify 
himself  to  her  when  he  did  not  really  know 
himself?  So  he  merely  said,  "Yes." 

"  She  is  your  sister,"  he  added,  in  an  explan 
atory  tone,  after  a  pause  ;  and  despised  him 
self  for  the  subterfuge.  It  is  amazing  how 
long  a  man  may  be  false  in  action  before  he 
ceases  to  shrink  from  being  false  in  words. 


1 24  Malbone. 

"  Philip,"  said  the  unsuspecting  Hope,  "  I 
knew  that  you  cared  about  her.  I  have  seen 
you  look  at  her  with  so  much  affection  ;  and 
then  again  I  have  seen  you  look  cold  and 
almost  stern.  She  notices  it,  I  am  sure  she 
does,  this  changeableness.  But  this  is  not 
why  I  ask  the  .question.  I  think  you  must 
have  seen  something  else  that  I  have  been 
observing,  and  if  you  care  about  her,  even  for 
my  sake,  it  is  enough." 

Here  Philip  started,  and  felt  relieved. 

"  You  must  be  her  friend,"  continued  Hope, 
eagerly.  "  She  has  changed  her  whole  man 
ner  and  habits  very  fast.  Blanche  Ingleside 
and  that  set  seem  to  have  wholly  controlled 
her,  and  there  is  something  reckless  in  all  her 
ways.  You  are  the  only  person  who  can  help 
her." 

"How?" 

"  I  do  not  know  how,"  said  Hope,  almost 
impatiently.  "You  know  how.  You  have 
wonderful  influence.  You  saved  her  before, 
and  will  do  it  again.  I  put  her  in  your 
hands." 

"  What  can  I  do  for  her  ? "  asked  he,  with  a 
strange  mingling  of  terror  and  delight. 

"  Everything,"  said  she.     "  If  she  has  your 


M alb  one.  125 

society,  she  will  not  care  for  those  people,  so 
much  her  inferiors  in  character.  Devote  your 
self  to  her  for  a  time." 

"  And  leave  you  ? "  said  Philip,  hesitatingly. 

"  Anything,  anything,"  said  she.  "  If  I  do 
not  see  you  for  a  month,  I  can  bear  it.  Only 
promise  me  two  things.  First,  that  you  will 
go  to  her  this  very  day.  She  dines  with  Mrs. 
Ingleside." 

Philip  agreed. 

"Then,"  said  Hope,  with  saddened  tones, 
"  you  must  not  say  it  was  I  who  sent  you. 
Indeed  you  must  not.  That  would  spoil  all. 
Let  her  think  that  your  own  impulse  leads 
you,  and  then  she  will  yield.  I  know  Emilia 
enough  for  that." 

Malbone  paused,  half  in  ecstasy,  half  in  dis 
may.  Were  all  the  events  of  life  combining  to 
ruin  or  to  save  him  ?  This  young  girl,  whom 
he  so  passionately  loved,  was  she  to  be  thrust 
back  into  his  arms,  and  was  he  to  be  told  to 
clasp  her  and  be  silent  ?  And  that  by  Hope, 
and  in  the  name  of  duty  ? 

It  seemed  a  strange  position,  even  for  him 
who  was  so  eager  for  fresh  experiences  and 
difficult  combinations.  At  Hope's  appeal  he 
was  to  risk  Hope's  peace  forever  ;  he  was  to 


1 26  Malbone. 

make  her  sweet  sisterly  affection  its  own  exe 
cutioner.  In  obedience  to  her  love  he  must 
revive  Emilia's.  The  tender  intercourse  which 
he  had  been  trying  to  renounce  as  a  crime 
must  be  rebaptized  as  duty.  Was  ever  a  man 
placed,  he  thought,  in  a  position  so  inextri 
cable,  so  disastrous  ?  What  could  he  offer 
Emilia  ?  How  could  he  explain  to  her  his 
position  ?  He  could  not  even  tell  her  that 
it  was  at  Hope's  command  he  sought  her. 

He  who  is  summoned  to  rescue  a  drowning 
man,  knowing  that  he  himself  may  go  down 
with  that  inevitable  clutch  around  his  neck,  is 
placed  in  some  such  situation  as  Philip's.  Yet 
Hope  had  appealed  to  him  so  simply,  had 
trusted  him  so  nobly  !  Suppose  that,  by  any 
self-control,  or  wisdom,  or  unexpected  aid  of 
Heaven,  he  could  serve  both  her  and  Emilia, 
was  it  not  his  duty  ?  What  if  it  should  prove 
that  he  was  right  in  loving  them  both,  and 
had  only  erred  when  he  cursed  himself  for 
tampering  with  their  destinies?  Perhaps, 
after  all,  the  Divine  Love  had  been  guiding 
him,  and  at  some  appointed  signal  all  these 
complications  were  to  be  cleared,  and  he  and 
his  various  loves  were  somehow  to  be  inge 
niously  provided  for,  and  all  be  made  happy 
ever  after. 


Malbone.  127 

He  really  grew  quite  tender  and  devout 
over  these  meditations.  Phil  was  not  a  con 
ceited  fellow,  by  any  means,  but  he  had  been 
so  often  told  by  women  that  their  love  for  him 
had  been  a  blessing  to  their  souls,  that  he 
quite  acquiesced  in  being  a  providential  agent 
in  that  particular  direction.  Considered  as  a 
form  of  self-sacrifice,  it  was  not  without  its 
pleasures. 

Malbone  drove  that  afternoon  to  Mrs.  Ingle- 
side's  charming  abode,  whither  a  few  ladies 
were  wont  to  resort,  and  a  great  many  gen 
tlemen.  He  timed  his  call  between  the  hours 
of  dining  and  driving,  and  made  sure  that 
Emilia  had  not  yet  emerged.  Two  or  three 
equipages  beside  his  own  were  in  waiting  at  the 
gate,  and  gay  voices  resounded  from  the  house. 
A  servant  received  him  at  the  door,  and  taking 
him  for  a  tardy  guest,  ushered  him  at  once  in 
to  the  dining-room.  He  was  indifferent  to 
this,  for  he  had  been  too  often  sought  as  a- 
guest  by  Mrs.  Ingleside  to  stand  on  any  cere 
mony  beneath  her  roof. 

That  fair  hostess,  in  all  the  beauty  of  her 
shoulders,  rose  to  greet  him,  from  a  table 
where  six  or  eight  guests  yet  lingered  over 
flowers  and  wine.  The  gentlemen  were  smok- 


128  Malbone. 

ing,  and  some  of  the  ladies  were  trying  to 
look  at  ease  with  cigarettes.  Malbone  knew 
the  whole  company,  and  greeted  them  with 
his  accustomed  ease.  He  would  not  have 
been  embarrassed  if  they  had  been  the  Forty 
Thieves.  Some  of  them,  indeed,  were  not  so 
far  removed  from  that  fabled  band,  only  it  was 
their  fortunes,  instead  of  themselves,  that  lay 
in  the  jars  of  oil. 

"  You  find  us  all  here,"  said  Mrs.  Ingleside, 
sweetly.  "  We  will  wait  till  the  gentlemen 
finish  their  cigars,  before  driving." 

"  Count  me  in,  please,"  said  Blanche,  in  her 
usual  vein  of  frankness.  "Unless  mamma 
wishes  me  to  conclude  my  weed  on  the  Av 
enue.  It  would  be  fun,  though.  Fancy  the 
dismay  of  the  Frenchmen  and  the  dowagers  !  " 

"  And  old  Lambert,"  said  one  of  the  other 
girls,  delightedly. 

"Yes,"  said  Blanche.     "The  elderly  party 

•  from  the  rural  districts,  who  talks  to  us  about 

the  domestic  virtues  of  the  wife  of  his  youth." 

"  Thinks  women  should  cruise  with  a  broom 
at  their  mast-heads,  like  Admiral  somebody  in 
England,"  said  another  damsel,  who  was  roll 
ing  a  cigarette  for  a  midshipman. 

"You  see  we   do  not    follow   the    English 


Malbone.  1 29 

style,"  said  the  smooth  hostess  to  Philip. 
"  Ladies  retiring  after  dinner  !  After  all,  it 
is  a  coarse  practice.  You  agree  with  me, 
Mr.  Malbone  ?  " 

"Speak  your  mind,"  said  Blanche,  coolly. 
"  Don't  say  yes  if  you  'd  rather  not.  Because 
we  find  a  thing  a  bore,  you  've  no  call  to  say 
so." 

"  I  always  say,"  continued  the  matron,  "  that 
the  presence  of  woman  is  needed  as  a  refining 
influence." 

Malbone  looked  round  for  the  refining  influ 
ences.  Blanche  was  tilted  back  in  her  chair, 
with  one  foot  on  the  rung  of  the  chair  before 
her,  resuming  a  loud-toned  discourse  with 
Count  Posen  as  to  his  projected  work  on 
American  society.  She  was  trying  to  extort 
a  promise  that  she  should  appear  in  its  pages, 
which,  as  we  all  remember,  she  did.  One  of 
her  attendant  nymphs  sat  leaning  her  elbows 
on  the  table,  "  talking  horse  "  with  a  gentleman 
who  had  an  undoubted  professional  claim  to  a 
knowledge  of  that  commodity.  Another,  hav 
ing  finished  her  manufactured  cigarette,  was 
making  the  grinning  midshipman  open  his 
lips  wider  and  wider  to  receive  it.  Mrs.  In- 
gleside  was  talking  in  her  mincing  way  with  a 
6*  i 


1 30  Malbone. 

Jew  broker,  whose  English  was  as  imperfect 
as  his  morals,  and  who  needed  nothing  to 
make  him  a  millionnaire  but  a  turn  of  bad 
luck  for  somebody  else.  Half  the  men  in  the 
room  would  have  felt  quite  ill  at  ease  in  any 
circle  of  refined  women,  but  there  was  not  one 
who  did  not  feel  perfectly  unembarrassed 
around  Mrs.  Ingleside's  board. 

"  Upon  my  word, '  thought  Malbone,  "  I 
never  fancied  the  English  after-dinner  prac 
tice,  any  more  than  did  Napoleon.  But  if 
this  goes  on,  it  is  the  gentlemen  who  ought  to 
withdraw.  Cannot  somebody  lead  the  way  to 
the  drawing-room,  and  leave  the  ladies  to  fin 
ish  their  cigars  ? " 

Till  now  he  had  hardly  dared  to  look  at 
Emilia.  He  saw  with  a  thrill  of  love  that  she 
was  the  one  person  in  the  room  who  appeared 
out  of  place  or  ill  at  ease.  She  did  not  glance 
at  him,  but  held  her  cigarette  in  silence  and 
refused  to  light  it.  She  had  boasted  to  him 
once  of  having  learned  to  smoke  at  school. 

"  What 's  the  matter,  Emmy  ?  "  suddenly 
exclaimed  Blanche.  "  Are  you  under  a  cloud, 
that  you  don't  blow  one  ?  " 

"  Blanche,  Blanche,"  said  her  mother,  in 
sweet  reproof.  "  Mr.  Malbone,  what  shall  I 


Malbone.  \  3 1 

do  with  this  wild  girl  ?  Such  a  light  way  of 
talking !  But  I  can  assure  you  that  she  is 
really  very  fond  of  the  society  of  intellectual, 
superior  men.  I  often  tell  her  that  they  are, 
after  all,  her  most  congenial  associates.  More 
so  than  the  young  and  giddy." 

"  You  'd  better  believe  it,"  said  the  una 
bashed  damsel.  "  Take  notice  that  whenever 
I  go  to  a  dinner-party  I  look  round  for  a  cler 
gyman  to  drink  wine  with." 

"  Incorrigible  !  "  -said  the  caressing  mother. 
"  Mr.  Malbone  would  hardly  imagine  you  had 
been  bred  in  a  Christian  land." 

"  I  have,  though,"  retorted  Blanche.  "  My 
esteemed  parent  always  accustomed  me  to 
give  up  something  during  Lent,  —  champagne, 
or  the  New  York  Herald,  or  something." 

The  young  men  roared,  and,  had  time  and 
cosmetics  made  it  possible,  Mrs.  Ingleside 
would  have  blushed  becomingly.  After  all, 
the  daughter  was  the  better  of  the  two.  Her 
bluntness  was  refreshing  beside  the  mother's 
suavity ;  she  had  a  certain  generosity,  too, 
and  in  a  case  of  real  destitution  would  have 
lent  her  best  ear-rings  to  a  friend. 

By  this  time  Malbone  had  edged  himself  to 
Emilia's  side.  "  Will  you  drive  with  me  ?  "  he 
murmured  in  an  undertone. 


132  Ma  I  bone. 

She  nodded  slightly,  abruptly,  and  he  with 
drew  again. 

"  It  seems  barbarous,"  said  he  aloud,  "  to 
break  up  the  party.  But  I  must  claim  my 
promised  drive  with  Miss  Emilia." 

Blanche  looked  up,  for  once  amazed,  having 
heard  a  different  programme  arranged.  Count 
Posen  looked  up  also.  But  he  thought  he 
must  have  misunderstood  Emilia's  acceptance 
of  his  previous  offer  to  drive  her ;  and  as  he 
prided  himself  even  more  on  his  English  than 
on  his  gallantry,  he  said  no  more.  It  was  no 
great  matter.  Young  Jones's  dog-cart  was  at 
the  door,  and  always  opened  eagerly  its  arms 
to  anybody  with  a  title. 


M alb  one.  133 

XII. 

A   NEW   ENGAGEMENT. 

TEN  days  later  Philip  came  into  Aunt 
Jane's  parlor,  looking  excited  and  gloomy, 
with  a  letter  in  his  hand.  He  put  it  down  on 
her  table  without  its  envelope,  —  a  thing  that 
always  particularly  annoyed  her.  A  letter 
without  its  envelope,  she  was  wont  to  say, 
was  like  a  man  without  a  face,  or  a  key  with 
out  a  string,  —  something  incomplete,  prepos 
terous.  As  usual,  however,  he  strode  across 
her  prejudices,  and  said,  "  I  have  something  to 
tell  you.  It  is  a  fact." 

"  Is  it  ? "  said  Aunt  Jane,  curtly.  "  That  is 
refreshing  in  these  times." 

"  A  good  beginning,"  said  Kate.  "  Go  on. 
You  have  prepared  us  for  something  incredi 
ble." 

"You  will  think  it  so,"  said  Malbone. 
"Emilia  is  engaged  to  Mr.  John  Lambert." 
And  he  went  out  of  the  room. 

"  Good  Heavens  !  "  said  Aunt  Jane,  taking 
off  her  spectacles.  "  What  a  man  !  He  is 


1 34  Malbone. 

ugly  enough  to  frighten  the  neighboring 
crows.  His  face  looks  as  if  it  had  fallen 
together  out  of  chaos,  and  the  features  had 
come  where  it  had  pleased  Fate.  There  is  a 
look  of  industrious  nothingness  about  him, 
such  as  busy  dogs  have.  I  know  the  whole 
family.  They  used  to  bake  our  bread." 

"  I  suppose  they  are  good  and  sensible," 
said  Kate. 

"  Like  boiled  potatoes,  my  dear,"  was  the 
response,  —  "  wholesome  but  perfectly  unin 
teresting." 

"  Is  he  of  that  sort  ? "  asked  Kate. 

"  No,"  said  her  aunt  ;  "  not  uninteresting, 
but  ungracious.  But  I  like  an  ungracious  man 
better  than  one  like  Philip,  who  hangs  over 
young  girls  like  a  soft-hearted  avalanche.  This 
Lambert  will  govern  Emilia,  which  is  what 
she  needs." 

"  She  will  never  love  him,"  said  Kate, 
"  which  is  the  one  thing  she  needs.  There 
is  nothing  that  could  not  be  done  with  Emilia 
by  any  person  with  whom  she  was  in  love  ; 
and  nothing  can  ever  be  done  with  her  by 
anybody  else.  No  good  will  ever  come  of 
this,  and  I  hope  she  will  never  marry  him." 

With  this  unusual  burst,  Kate  retreated  to 


Malbone. 


135 


Hope.  Hope  took  the  news  more  patiently 
than  any  one,  but  with  deep  solicitude.  A 
worldly  marriage  seemed  the  natural  result 
of  the  Ingleside  influence,  but  it  had  not  oc 
curred  to  anybody  that  it  would  come  so  soon. 
It  had  not  seemed  Emilia's  peculiar  tempta 
tion  ;  and  yet  nobody  could  suppose  that  she 
looked  at  John  Lambert  through  any  glamour 
of  the  affections. 

Mr.  John  Lambert  was  a  millionnaire,  a 
politician,  and  a  widower.  The  late  Mrs. 
Lambert  had  been  a  specimen  of  that  cheerful 
hopelessness  of  temperament  that  one  finds 
abundantly  developed  among  the  middle-aged 
women  of  country  towns.  She  enjoyed  her 
daily  murders  in  the  newspapers,  and  wept 
profusely  at  the  funerals  of  strangers.  On 
every  occasion,  however  felicitous,  she  offered 
her  condolences  in  a  feeble  voice,  that  seemed 
to  have  been  washed  a  great  many  times  and 
to  have  faded.  But  she  was  a  good  manager, 
a  devoted  wife,  and  was  more  cheerful  at  home 
than  elsewhere,  for  she  had  there  plenty  of 
trials  to  exercise  her  eloquence,  and  not  enough 
joy  to  make  it  her  duty  to  be  doleful.  At  last 
her  poor,  meek,  fatiguing  voice  faded  out  alto 
gether,  and  her  husband  mourned  her  as 


1 36  Malbone. 

heartily  as  she  would  have  bemoaned  the 
detnise  of  the  most  insignificant  neighbor. 
After  her  death,  being  left  childless,  he  had 
nothing  to  do  but  to  make  money,  and  he 
naturally  made  it.  Having  taken  his  primary 
financial  education  in  New  England,  he  grad 
uated  at  that  great  business  university,  Chi 
cago,  and  then  entered  on  the  public  practice 
of  wealth  in  New  York. 

Aunt  Jane  had  perhaps  done  injustice  to 
the  personal  appearance  of  Mr.  John  Lam 
bert.  His  features  were  irregular,  but  not  in 
significant,  and  there  was  a  certain  air  of  slow 
command  about  him,  which  made  some  per 
sons  call  him  handsome.  He  was  heavily 
built,  with  a  large,  well-shaped  head,  light 
whiskers  tinged  with  gray,  and  a  sort  of  dusty 
complexion.  His  face  was  full  of  little  curved 
wrinkles,  as  if  it  were  a  slate  just  ruled  for 
sums  in  long  division,  and  his  small  blue  eyes 
winked  anxiously  a  dozen  different  ways,  as 
if  they  were  doing  the  sums.  He  seemed  to 
bristle  with  memorandum-books,  and  kept 
drawing  them  from  every  pocket,  to  put 
something  down.  He  was  slow  of  speech, 
and  his  very  heaviness  of  look  added  to  the 
impression  of  reserved  power  about  the  man. 


Malbone.  137 

All  his  career  in  life  had  been  a  solid  progress, 
and  his  boldest  speculations  seemed  securer 
than  the  legitimate  business  of  less  potent 
financiers.  Beginning  business  life  by  ped 
dling  gingerbread  on  a  railway  train,  he  had 
developed  such  a  genius  for  railway  manage 
ment  as  some  men  show  for  chess  or  for  vir 
tue  ;  and  his  accumulating  property  had  the 
momentum  of  a  planet. 

He  had  read  a  good  deal  at  odd  times,  and 
had  seen  a  great  deal  of  men.  His  private 
morals  were  unstained,  he  was  equable  and 
amiable,  had  strong  good  sense,  and  never  got 
beyond  his  depth.  He  had  travelled  in  Eu 
rope  and  brought  home  many  statistics,  some 
new  thoughts,  and  a  few  good  pictures  select 
ed  by  his  friends.  He  spent  his  money  liber 
ally  for  the  things  needful  to  his  position, 
owned  a  yacht,  bred  trotting-horses,  and  had 
founded  a  theological  school. 

He  submitted  to  these  and  other  social  ob 
servances  from  a  vague  sense  of  duty  as  an 
American  citizen ;  his  real  interest  lay  in 
business  and  in  politics.  Yet  he  conducted 
these  two  vocations  on  principles  diametrical 
ly  opposite.  In  business  he  was  more  honest 
than  the  average  ;  in  politics  he  had  no  con- 


138  Malbone. 

ception  of  honesty,  for  he  could  see  no  differ 
ence  between  a  politician  and  any  other  mer 
chandise.  He  always  succeeded  in  business, 
for  he  thoroughly  understood  its  principles  ; 
in  politics  he  always  failed  in  the  end,  for  he 
recognized  no  principles  at  all.  In  business 
he  was  active,  resolute,  and  seldom  deceived  ; 
in  politics  he  was  equally  active,  but  was  apt 
to  be  irresolute,  and  was  deceived  every  day 
of  his  life.  In  both  cases  it  was  not  so  much 
from  love  of  power  that  he  labored,  as  from 
the  excitement  of  the  game.  The  larger  the 
scale  the  better  he  liked  it ;  a  large  railroad 
operation,  a  large  tract  of  real  estate,  a  big 
and  noisy  statesman,  —  these  investments  he 
found  irresistible. 

On  which  of  his  two  sets  of  principles  he 
would  manage  a  wife  remained  to  be  proved. 
It  is  the  misfortune  of  what  are  called  self- 
made  men  in  America,  that,  though  early  ac 
customed  to  the  society  of  men  of  the  world, 
they  often  remain  utterly  unacquainted  with 
women  of  the  world,  until  those  charming 
perils  are  at  last  sprung  upon  them  in  .full 
force,  at  New  York  or  Washington.  John 
Lambert  at  forty  was  as  absolutely  ignorant 
of  the  qualities  and  habits  of  a  cultivated 


Malbone.  1 39 

woman  as  of  the  details  of  her  toilet.  The 
plain  domesticity  of  his  departed  wife  he  had 
understood  and  prized  ;  he  remembered  her 
household  ways  as  he  did  her  black  alpaca 
dress  ;  indeed,  except  for  that  item  of  apparel, 
she  was  not  so  unlike  himself.  In  later  years 
he  had  seen  the  women  of  society  ;  he  had 
heard  them  talk  ;  he  had  heard  men  talk  about 
them,  wittily  or  wickedly,  at  the  clubs  ;  he 
had  perceived  that  a  good  many  of  them 
wished  to  marry  him,  and  yet,  after  all,  he 
knew  no  more  of  them  than  of  the  rearing  of 
humming-birds  or  orchids,  —  dainty,  tropical 
things  which  he  allowed  his  gardener  to  raise, 
he  keeping  his  hands  off,  and  only  paying  the 
bills.  Whether  there  was  in  existence  a  class 
of  women  who  were  both  useful  and  refined, 
—  any  intermediate  type  between  the  butter 
fly  and  the  drudge,  —  was  a  question  which 
he  had  sometimes  asked  himself  without  hav 
ing  the  materials  to  construct  a  reply. 

With  imagination  thus  touched  and  heart 
unfilled,  this  man  had  been  bewitched  from 
the  very  first  moment  by  Emilia.  He  kept  it 
to  himself,  and  heard  in  silence  the  criticisms 
made  at  the  club-windows.  To  those  perpet 
ual  jokes  about  marriage,  which  are  showered 


140  Malbone. 

with  such  graceful  courtesy  about  the  path 
of  widowers,  he  had  no  reply ;  or  at  most 
would  only  admit  that  he  needed  some  ele 
gant  woman  to  preside  over  his  establishment, 
and  that  he  had  better  take  her  young,  as  hav 
ing  habits  less  fixed.  But  in  his  secret  soul 
he  treasured  every  tone  of  this  girl's  voice, 
every  glance  of  her  eye,  and  would  have  kept 
in  a  casket  of  gold  and  diamonds  the  little 
fragrant  glove  she  once  let  fall.  He  envied 
the  penniless  and  brainless  boys,  who,  with 
ready  gallantry,  pushed  by  him  to  escort  her 
to  her  carriage  •;  and  he  lay  awake  at  night  to 
form  into  words  the  answer  he  ought  to  have 
made,  when  she  threw  at  him  some  careless 
phrase,  and  gave  him  the  opportunity  to  blun 
der. 

And  she,  meanwhile,  unconscious  of  his  pas 
sion,  went  by  him  in  her  beauty,  and  caught 
him  in  the  net  she  never  threw.  Emilia 
was  always  piquant,  because  she  was  indif 
ferent  ;  she  had  never  made  an  effort  in  her 
life,  and  she  had  no  respect  for  persons.  She 
was  capable  of  marrying  for  money,  perhaps, 
but  the  sacrifice  must  all  be  completed  in  a 
single  vow.  She  would  not  tutor  nor  control 
herself  for  the  purpose.  Hand  and  heart 


Malbone.  141 

must  be  duly  transferred,  she  supposed,  when 
ever  the  time  was  up  ;  but  till  then  she  must 
be  free. 

This  with  her  was  not  art,  but  necessity  ; 
yet  the  most  accomplished  art  could  have 
devised  nothing  so  effectual  to  hold  her  lover. 
His  strong  sense  had  always  protected  him 
from  the  tricks  of  matchmaking  mammas  and 
their  guileless  maids.  Had  Emilia  made  one 
effort  to  please  him,  once  concealed  a  dislike, 
once  affected  a  preference,  the  spell  might 
have  been  broken.  Had  she  been  his  slave, 
he  might  have  become  a  very  unyielding 
or  a  very  heedless  despot.  Making  him  her 
slave,  she  kept  htm  at  the  very  height  of  bliss. 
This  king  of  railways  and  purchaser  of  states 
men,  this  man  who  made  or  wrecked  the  for 
tunes  of  others  by  his  whim,  was  absolutely 
governed  by  a  reckless,  passionate,  inexperi 
enced,  ignorant  girl. 

And  this  passion  was  made  all  the  stronger 
by  being  a  good  deal  confined  to  his  own 
breast.  Somehow  it  was  very  hard  for  him  to 
talk  sentiment  to  Emilia ;  he  instinctively 
saw  she  disliked  it,  and  indeed  he  liked  her 
for  not  approving  the  stiff  phrases  which  were 
all  he  could  command.  Nor  could  he  find 


142  Mai  bone. 

any  relief  of  mind  in  talking  with  others 
about  her.  It  enraged  him  to  be  clapped  on 
the  back  and  congratulated  by  his  compeers  ; 
and  he  stopped  their  coarse  jokes,  often  rudely 
enough.  As  for  the  young  men  at  the  club, 
he  could  not  bear  to  hear  them  mention  his 
darling's  name,  however  courteously.  He 
knew  well  enough  that  for  them  the  be 
trothal  had  neither  dignity  nor  purity  ;  that 
they  held  it  to  be  as  much  a  matter  of  bar 
gain  and  sale  as  their  worst  amours.  He 
would  far  rather  have  talked  to  the  theologi 
cal  professors  whose  salaries  he  paid,  for  he 
saw  that  they  had  a  sort  of  grave,  formal  tra 
dition  of  the  sacredness  of  marriage.  And  he 
had  a  right  to  claim  that  to  him  it  was  sacred, 
at  least  as  yet ;  all  the  ideal  side  of  his  nature 
was  suddenly  developed ;  he  walked  in  a 
dream  ;  he  even  read  Tennyson. 

Sometimes  he  talked  a  little  to  his  future 
brother-in-law,  Harry,  —  assuming,  as  lovers 
are  wont,  that  brothers  see  sisters  on  their 
ideal  side.  This  was  quite  true  of  Harry  and 
Hope,  but  not  at  all  true  as  regarded  Emilia. 
She  seemed  to  him  simply  a  beautiful  and  un- 
governed  girl  whom  he  could  not  respect,  and 
whom  he  therefore  found  it  very  hard  to  ideal- 


Malbone.  143 

ize.  Therefore  he  heard  with  a  sort  of  sadness 
the  outpourings  of  generous  devotion  from 
John  Lambert. 

"  I  don't  know  how  it  is,  Henry,"  the  mer 
chant  would  gravely  say,  "  I  can't  get  rightly 
used  to  it,  that  I  feel  so  strange.  Honestly, 
now,  I  feel  as  if  I  was  beginning  life  over 
again.  It  ain't  a  selfish  feeling,  so  I  know 
there  's  some  good  in  it.  I  used  to  be  selfish 
enough,  but  I  ain't  so  to  her.  You  may  not 
think  it,  but  if  it  would  make  her  happy,  I  be 
lieve  I  could  lie  down  and  let  her  carriage  roll 

over  me.  By ,  I  would  build  her  a  palace 

to  live  in,  and  keep  the  lodge  at  the  gate  myself, 
just  to  see  her  pass  by.  That  is,  if  she  was 
to  live  in  it  alone  by  herself.  I  could  n't  stand 
sharing  her.  It  must  be  me  or  nobody." 

Probably  there  was  no  male  acquaintance 
of  the  parties,  however  hardened,  to  whom 
these  fine  flights  would  have  seemed  more 
utterly  preposterous  than  to  the  immediate 
friend  and  prospective  bridesmaid,  Miss 
Blanche  Ingleside.  To  that  young  lady, 
trained  sedulously  by  a  devoted  mother,  life 
was  really  a  serious  thing.  It  meant  the  full 
rigor  of  the  marriage  market,  tempered  only 
by  dancing  and  new  dresses.  There  was  a 


1 44  Malbone. 

stern  sense  of  duty  beneath  all  her  robing  and 
disrobing ;  she  conscientiously  did  what  was 
expected  of  her,  and  took  her  little  amuse 
ments  meanwhile.  It  was  supposed  that  most 
of  the  purchasers  in  the  market  preferred  slang 
and  bare  shoulders,  and  so  she  favored  them 
with  plenty  of  both.  It  was  merely  the  law 
of  supply  and  demand.  Had  John  Lambert 
once  hinted  that  he  would  accept  her  in  de 
cent  black,  she  would  have  gone  to  the  next 
ball  as  a  Sister  of  Charity  ;  but  where  was 
the  need  of  it,  when  she  and  her  mother  both 
knew  that,  had  she  appeared  as  the  Veiled 
Prophet  of  Khorassan,  she  would  not  have 
won  him  ?  So  her  only  resource  was  a  cheer 
ful  acquiescence  in  Emilia's  luck,  and  a  judi 
cious  propitiation  of  the  accepted  favorite. 

"  I  would  n't  mind  playing  Virtue  Rewarded 
myself,  young  woman,"  said  Blanche,  "  at  such 
a  scale  of  prices.  I  would  do  it  even  to  so 
slow  an  audience  as  old  Lambert.  But  you 
see,  it  is  n't  my  line.  Don't  forget  your  hum 
ble  friends  when  you  come  into  your  property, 
that's  all."  Then  the  tender  coterie  of  inno 
cents  entered  on  some  preliminary  considera 
tion  of  wedding-dresses. 

When  Emilia  came  home,  she  dismissed  the 


Malbone.  145 

whole  matter  lightly  as  a  settled  thing,  evad 
ed  all  talk  with  Aunt  Jane,  and  coolly  said 
to  Kate  that  she  had  no  objection  to  Mr.  Lam 
bert,  and  might  as  well  marry  him  as  anybody 
else. 

"  I  am  not  like  you  and  Hal,  you  know," 
said  she.  "  I  have  no  fancy  for  love  in  a  cot 
tage.  I  never  look  well  in  anything  that  is 
not  costly.  I  have  not  a  taste  that  does  not 
imply  a  fortune.  What  is  the  use  of  love  ? 
One  marries  for  love,  and  is  unhappy  ever 
after.  One  marries  for  money,  and  perhaps 
gets  love  after  all.  I  dare  say  Mr.  Lambert 
loves  me,  though  I  do  not  see  why  he  should." 

"  I  fear  he  does,"  said  Kate,  almost  severely. 

"  Fear  ?  "  said  Emilia. 

"  Yes,"  said  Kate.  "  It  is  an  unequal  bar 
gain,  where  one  side  does  all  the  loving." 

"  Don't  be  troubled,"  said  Emilia.  "  I  dare 
say  he  will  not  love  me  long.  Nobody  ever 
did  !  "  And  her  eyes  filled  with  tears  which 
she  dashed  away  angrily,  as  she  ran  up  to  her 
room. 

It  was  harder  yet  for  her  to  talk  with  Hope, 
but  she  did  it,  and  that  in  a  very  serious  mood.- 
She  had  never  been  so  open  with  her  sister. 

"Aunt  Jane  once  told  me,"  she  said,  "that 
7  J 


146  Malbone. 

my  only  safety  was  in  marrying  a  good  man. 
Now  I  am  engaged  to  one." 

"Do  you  love  him,  Emilia?"  asked  Hope, 
gravely. 

"Not  much,"  said  Emilia,  honestly.  "But 
perhaps  I  shall,  by  and  by." 

"  Emilia,"  cried  Hope,  "  there  is  no  such 
thing  as  happiness  in  a  marriage  without 
love." 

"  Mine  is  not  without  love,"  the  girl  an 
swered.  "  He  loves  me.  It  frightens  me  to 
see  how  much  he  loves  me.  I  can  have  the 
devotion  of  a  lifetime,  if  I  will.  Perhaps  it  is 
hard  to  receive  it  in  such  a  way,  but  I  can 
have  it.  Do  you  blame  me  very  much  ?  " 

Hope  hesitated.  "  I  cannot  blame  you  so 
much,  my  child,"  she  said,  "as  if  1  thought 
it  were  money  for  which  you  cared.  It  seems 
to  me  that  there  must  be  something  beside 
that,  and  yet  —  " 

"  O  Hope,  how  I  thank  you,"  interrupted 
Emilia.  "  It  is  not  money.  You  know  I  do 
not  care  about  money,  except  just  to  buy  my 
clothes  and  things.  At  least,  I  do  not  care 
about  so  much  as  he  has, —  more  than  a  mil 
lion  dollars,  only  think !  Perhaps  they  said 
two  million.  Is  it  wrong  for  me  to  marry  him, 
just  because  he  has  that  ?" 


Malbone.  147 

"  Not  if  you  love  him." 

"  I  do  not  exactly  love  him,  but  O  Hope,  I 
cannot  tell  you  about  it.  I  am  not  so  frivo 
lous  as  you  think.  I  want  to  do  my  duty.  I 
want  to  make  you  happy  too :  you  have  been 
so  sweet  to  me." 

"  Did  you  think  it  would  make  me  happy  to 
have  you  married  ? "  asked  Hope,  surprised, 
and  kissing  again  and  again  the  young,  sad 
face.  And  the  two  girls  went  upstairs  to 
gether,  brought  for  the  moment  into  more 
sisterly  nearness  by  the  very  thing  that  had 
seemed  likely  to  set  them  forever  apart. 


148  Malbone. 


XIII. 

DREAMING   DREAMS. 

SO  short  was  the  period  between  Emilia's 
betrothal  and  her  marriage,  that  Aunt 
Jane's  sufferings  over  trousseau  and  visits  did 
not  last  long.  Mr.  Lambert's  society  was  the 
worst  thing  to  bear. 

"  He  makes  such  long  calls  ! "  she  said,  de 
spairingly.  "  He  should  bring  an  almanac 
with  him  to  know  when  the  days  go  by." 

"But  Harry  and  Philip  are  here  all  the 
time,"  said  Kate,  the  accustomed  soother. 

"  Harry  is  quiet,  and  Philip  keeps  out  of  the 
way  lately,"  she  answered.  "  But  I  always 
thought  lovers  the  most  inconvenient  thing 
about  a  house.  They  are  more  troublesome 
than  the  mice,  and  all  those  people  who  live 
in  the  wainscot ;  for  though  the  lovers  make 
less  noise,  yet  you  have  to  see  them." 

"  A  necessary  evil,  dear,"  said  Kate,  with 
much  philosophy. 

"  I  am  not  sure,"  said  the  complainant. 
"  They  might  be  excluded  in  the  deed  of  a 


Malbonc.  149 

house,  or  by  the  terms  of  the  lease.  The 
next  house  I  take,  I  shall  say  to  the  owner, 
'  Have  you  a  good  well  of  water  on  the  prem 
ises  ?  Are  you  troubled  with  rats  or  lovers  ? ' 
That  will  settle  it." 

It  was  true,  what  Aunt  Jane  said  about 
Malbone.  He  had  changed  his  habits  a  good 
deal.  While  the  girls  were  desperately  busy 
about  the  dresses,  he  beguiled  Harry  to  the 
club,  and  sat  on  the  piazza,  talking  sentiment 
and  sarcasm,  regardless  of  hearers. 

"  When  we  are  young,"  he  would  say,  "  we 
are  all  idealists  in  love.  Every  imaginative 
boy  has  such  a  passion,  while  his  intellect  is 
crude  and  his  senses  indifferent.  It  is  the 
height  of  bliss.  All  other  pleasures  are  not 
worth  its  pains.  With  older  men  this  ecstasy 
of  the  imagination  is  rare  ;  it  is  the  senses 
that  clutch  or  reason  which  holds." 

"  Is  that  an  improvement  ? "  asked  some 
juvenile  listener. 

"  No  !  "  said  Philip,  strongly.  "  Reason  is 
cold  and  sensuality  hateful ;  a  man  of  any 
feeling  must  feed  his  imagination  ;  there  must 
be  a  woman  of  whom  he  can  dream." 

"  That  is,"  put  in  some  more  critical  auditor, 
"  whom  he  can  love  as  a  woman  loves  a  man." 


1 50  Malbone. 

"  For  want  of  the  experience  of  such  a  pas 
sion,"  Malbone  went  on,  unheeding,  "  nobody 
comprehends  Petrarch.  Philosophers  and  sen 
sualists  all  refuse  to  believe  that  his  dream  of 
Laura  went  on,  even  when  he  had  a  mistress 
and  a  child.  Why  not  ?  Every  one  must 
have  something  to  which  his  dreams  can  cling, 
amid  the  degradations  of  actual  life,  and  this 
tie  is  more  real  than  the  degradation  ;  and  if 
he  holds  to  the  tie,  it  will  one  day  save  him." 

"  What  is  the  need  of  the  degradation  ? " 
put  in  the  clear-headed  Harry. 

"  None,  except  in  weakness,"  said  Philip. 
"  A  stronger  nature  may  escape  it.  Good 
God !  do  I  not  know  how  Petrarch  must 
have  felt  ?  What  sorrow  life  brings !  Sup 
pose  a  man  hopelessly  separated  from  one 
whom  he  passionately  loves.  Then,  as  he 
looks  up  at  the  starry  sky,  something  says  to 
him  :  '  You  can  bear  all  these  agonies  of  pri 
vation,  loss  of  life,  loss  of  love,  —  what  are 
they  ?  If  the  tie  between  you  is  what  you 
thought,  neither  life  nor  death,  neither  folly 
nor  sin,  can  keep  her  forever  from  you.' 
Would  that  one  could  always  feel  so!  But 
I  am  weak.  Then  comes  impulse,  it  thirsts 
for  some  immediate  gratification  ;  I  yield,  and 


Malbone.  IS1 

plunge  into  any  happiness  since  I  cannot  ob 
tain  her.  Then  comes  quiet  again,  with  the 
stars,  and  I  bitterly  reproach  myself  for  need 
ing  anything  more  than  that  stainless  ideal. 
And  so,  I  fancy,  did  Petrarch." 

Philip  was  getting  into  a  dangerous  mood 
with  his  sentimentalism.  No  lawful  passion 
can  ever  be  so  bewildering  or  ecstatic  as  an 
unlawful  one.  For  that  which  is  right  has 
all  the  powers  of  the  universe  on  its  side,  and 
can  afford  to  wait ;  but  the  wrong,  having  all 
those  vast  forces  against  it,  must  hurry  to  its 
fulfilment,  reserve  nothing,  concentrate  all  its 
ecstasies  upon  to-day.  Malbone,  greedy  of 
emotion,  was  drinking  to  the  dregs  a  passion 
that  could  have  no  to-morrow. 

Sympathetic  persons  are  apt  to  assume  that 
every  refined  emotion  must  be  ennobling.  This 
is  not  true  of  men  like  Malbone,  voluptuaries 
of  the  heart.  He  ordinarily  got  up  a  passion 
very  much  as  Lord  Russell' got  up  an  appetite, 

—  he,    of  Spence's  Anecdotes,  who  went  out 
hunting   for   that  sole   purpose,  and   left   the 
chase   when    the   sensation   came.      Malbone 
did  not  leave  his  more  spiritual  chase  so  soon, 

—  it   made  him  too  happy.      Sometimes,  in 
deed,  when  he  had  thus  caught  his  emotion, 


152  Malbone. 

it  caught  him  in  return,  and  for  a  few  mo 
ments  made  him  almost  unhappy.  This  he 
liked  best  of  all ;  he  nursed  the  delicious  pain, 
knowing  that  it  would  die  out  soon  enough, 
there  was  no  need  of  hurrying  it  to  a  close. 
At  least,  there  had  never  been  need  for  such 
solicitude  before. 

Except  for  his  genius  for  keeping  his  own 
counsel,  every  acquaintance  of  Malbone's 
would  have  divined  the  meaning  of  these 
reveries.  As  it  was,  he  was  called  whimsical 
and  sentimental,  but  he  was  a  man  of  suf 
ficiently  assured  position  to  have  whims  of 
his  own,  and  could  even  treat  himself  to  an 
emotion  or  so,  if  he  saw  fit.  Besides,  he 
talked  well  to  anybody  on  anything,  and  was 
admitted  to  exhibit,  for  a  man  of  literary 
tastes,  a  good  deal  of  sense.  If  he  had  en 
gaged  himself  to  a  handsome  schoolmistress, 
it  was  his  fancy,  and  he  could  afford  it.  More 
over  she  was  well  connected,  and  had  an  air. 
And  what  more  natural  than  that  he  should 
stand  at  the  club-window  and  watch,  when  his 
young  half-sister  (that  was  to  be)  drove  by 
with  John  Lambert  ?  So  every  afternoon  he 
saw  them  pass  in  a  vehicle  of  lofty  descrip 
tion,  with  two  wretched  appendages  in  dark 


Malbone.  153 

blue  broadcloth,  who  sat  with  their  backs 
turned  to  their  masters,  kept  their  arms 
folded,  and  nearly  rolled  off  at  every  corner. 
Hope  would  have  dreaded  the  close  neighbor 
hood  of  those  Irish  ears  ;  she  would  rather 
have  ridden  even  in  an  omnibus,  could  she 
and  Philip  have  taken  all  the  seats.  But  then 
Hope  seldom  cared  to  drive  on  the  Avenue  at 
all,  except  as  a  means  of  reaching  the  ocean, 
whereas  with  most  people  it  appears  the  ap 
pointed  means  to  escape  from  that  spectacle. 
And  as  for  the  footmen,  there  was  nothing 
in  the  conversation  worth  their  hearing  or 
repeating ;  and  their  presence  was  a  relief 
to  Emilia,  for  who  knew  but  Mr.  Lambert 
himself  might  end  in  growing  sentimental  ? 

Yet  she  did  not  find  him  always  equally 
tedious.  Their  drives  had  some  variety.  For 
instance,  he  sometimes  gave  her  some  lovely 
present  before  they  set  forth,  and  she  could 
feel  that,  if  his  lips  did  not  yield  diamonds  and 
rubies,  his  pockets  did.  Sometimes  he  con 
versed  about  money  and  investments,  which 
she  rather  liked  ;  this  was  his  strong  and  com 
manding  point ;  he  explained  things  quite 
clearly,  and  they  found,  with  mutual  surprise, 
that  she  also  had  a  shrewd  little  brain  for 


154  Malbone. 

those  matters,  if  she  would  but  take  the 
trouble  to  think  about  them.  Sometimes  he 
insisted  on  being  tender,  and  even  this  was 
not  so  bad  as  she  expected,  at  least  for  a 
few  minutes  at  a  time  ;  she  rather  enjoyed 
having  her  hand  pressed  so  seriously,  and 
his  studied  phrases  amused  her.  It  was 
only  when  he  wished  the  conversation  to  be 
brilliant  and  intellectual,  that  he  became  in 
tolerable  ;  then  she  must  entertain  him,  must 
get  up  little  repartees,  must  tell  him  lively  an 
ecdotes,  which  he  swallowed  as  a  dog  bolts  a 
morsel,  being  at  once  ready  for  the  next.  He 
never  made  a  comment,  of  course,  but  at  the 
height  of  his  enjoyment  he  gave  a  quick, 
short,  stupid  laugh,  that  so  jarred  upon  her 
ears,  she  would  have  liked  to  be  struck  deaf 
rather  than  hear  it  again. 

At  these  times  she  thought  of  Malbone, 
how  gifted  he  was,  how  inexhaustible,  how 
agreeable,  with  a  faculty  for  happiness  that 
would  have  been  almost  provoking  had  it  not 
been  contagious.  Then  she  looked  from  her 
airy  perch  and  smiled  at  him  at  the  club-win 
dow,  where  he  stood  in  the  most  negligent  of 
attitudes,  and  with  every  faculty  strained  in 
observation.  A  moment  and  she  was  gone. 


Malbone.  155 

Then  all  was  gone,  and  a  mob  of  queens  might 
have  blocked  the  way,  without  his  caring  to 
discuss  their  genealogies,  even  with  old  Gen 
eral  Le  Breton,  who  had  spent  his  best  (or 
his  worst)  years  abroad,  and  was  supposed 
to  have  been  confidential  adviser  to  most  of 
the  crowned  heads  of  Europe. 

For  the  first  time  in  his  life  Malbone  found 
himself  in  the  grasp  of  a  passion  too  strong 
to  be  delightful.  For  the  first  time  his  own 
heart  frightened  him.  He  had  sometimes 
feared  that  it  was  growing  harder,  but  now 
he  discovered  that  it  was  not  hard  enough. 

He  knew  it  was  not  merely  mercenary  mo 
tives  that  had  made  Emilia  accept  Johrt  Lam 
bert  ;  but  what  troubled  him  was  a  vague 
knowledge  that  it  was  not  mere  pique.  He 
was  used  to  dealing  with  pique  in  women,  and 
had  found  it  the  most  manageable  of  weak 
nesses.  It  was  an  element  of  spasmodic  con 
science  that  he  saw  here,  and  it  troubled  him. 

Something  told  him  that  she  had  said  to 
herself:  "I  will  be  married,  and  thus  do  my 
duty  to  Hope.  Other  girls  marry  persons 
whom  they  do  not  love,  and  it  helps  them  to 
forget.  Perhaps  it  will  help  me.  This  is  a 
good  man,  they  say,  and  I  think  he  loves  me." 


156  Malbone. 

"  Think  ?  "  John  Lambert  had  adored  her 
when  she  had  passed  by  him  without  looking 
at  him  ;  and  now  when  the  thought  came  over 
him  that  she  would  be  his  wife,  he  became 
stupid  with  bliss.  And  as  latterly  he  had 
thought  of  little  else,  he  remained  more  or 
less  stupid  all  the  time. 

To  a  man  like  Malbone,  self-indulgent 
rather  than  selfish,  this  poor,  blind  semblance 
of  a  moral  purpose  in  Emilia  was  a  great  em 
barrassment.  It  is  a  terrible  thing  for  a  lover 
when  he  detects  conscience  amidst  the  armory 
of  weapons  used  against  him,  and  faces  the 
fact  that  he  must  blunt  a  woman's  principles 
to  win  her  heart.  Philip  was  rather  accus 
tomed  to  evade  conscience,  but  he  never  liked 
to  look  it  in  the  face  and  defy  it. 

Yet  if  the  thought  of  Hope  at  this  time 
came  over  him,  it  came  as  a  constraint,  and 
he  disliked  it  as  such  ;  and  the  more  generous 
and  beautiful  she  was,  the  greater  the  con 
straint.  He  cursed  himself  that  he  had  al 
lowed  himself  to  be  swayed  back  to  her, 
and  so  had  lost  Emilia  forever.  And  thus 
he  drifted  on,  not  knowing  what  he  wished 
for,  but  knowing  extremely  well  what  he 
feared. 


M alb  one.  157 

XIV. 
THE    NEMESIS    OF   PASSION. 

MALBONE  was  a  person  of  such  ready, 
emotional  nature,  and  such  easy  ex 
pression,  that  it  was  not  hard  for  Hope  to 
hide  from  herself  the  gradual  ebbing  of  his 
love.  Whenever  he  was  fresh  and  full  of 
spirits,  he  had  enough  to  overflow  upon  her 
and  every  one.  But  when  other  thoughts  and 
cares  were  weighing  on  him,  he  could  not 
share  them,  nor  could  he  at  such  times,  out 
of  the  narrowing  channel  of  his  own  life,  fur 
nish  more  than  a  few  scanty  drops  for  her. 
At  these  times  he  watched  with  torturing 
fluctuations  the  signs  of  solicitude  in  Hope, 
the  timid  withdrawing  of  her  fingers,  the 
questioning  of  her  eyes,  the  weary  drooping 
of  her  whole  expression.  Often  he  cursed 
himself  as  a  wretch  for  paining  that  pure  and 
noble  heart.  Yet  there  were  moments  when 
a  vague  inexpressible  delight  stole  in  ;  a  glim 
mering  of  shame-faced  pleasure  as  he  pon 
dered  on  this  visible  dawning  of  distrust;  a 


158  Malbone. 

sudden  taste  of  freedom  in  being  no  longer 
fettered  by  her  confidence.  By  degrees  he 
led  himself,  still  half  ashamed,  to  the  dream 
that  she  might  yet  be  somehow  weaned  from 
him,  and  leave  his  conscience  free.  By  con 
stantly  building  upon  this  thought,  and  put 
ting  aside  all  others,  he  made  room  upon  the 
waste  of  his  life  for  a  house  of  cards,  glitter 
ing,  unsubstantial,  lofty,  —  until  there  came 
some  sudden  breath  that  swept  it  away  ;  and 
then  he  began  on  it  again. 

In  one  of  those  moments  of  more  familiar 
faith  which  still  alternated  with  these  cold, 
sad  intervals,  she  asked  him  with  some  sudden 
impulse,  how  he  should  feel  if  she  loved 
another  ?  She  said  it,  as  if  guided  by  an 
instinct,  to  sound  the  depth  of  his  love  for 
her.  Starting  with  amazement,  he  looked  at 
her,  and  then,  divining  her  feeling,  he  only 
replied  by  an  egression  of  reproach,  and  by 
kissing  her  hands  with  an  habitual  tenderness 
that  had  grown  easy  to  him, — and  they  were 
such  lovely  hands  !  But  his  heart  told  him 
that  no  spent  swimmer  ever  transferred  more 
eagerly  to  another's  arms  some  precious  bur 
den  beneath  which  he  was  consciously  sink 
ing,  than  he  would  yield  her  up  to  any  one 


Malbone.  159 

whom  she  would  consent  to  love,  and  who 
could  be  trusted  with  the  treasure.  Until 
that  ecstasy  of  release  should  come,  he  would 
do  his  duty,  —  yes,  his  duty. 

When  these  flushed  hopes  grew  pale,  as 
they  soon  did,  he  could  at  least  play  with  the 
wan  fancies  that  took  their  place.  Hour 
after  hour,  while  she  lavished  upon  him  the 
sweetness  of  her  devotion,  he  was  half  con 
sciously  shaping  with  his  tongue  some  word 
of  terrible  revealing  that  should  divide  them 
like  a  spell,  if  spoken,  and  then  recalling  it 
before  it  left  his  lips.  Daily  and  hourly  he 
felt  the  last  agony  of  a  weak  and  passionate 
nature,  —  to  dream  of  one  woman  in  another's 
arms. 

She,  too,  watched  him  with  an  ever-increas 
ing  instinct  of  danger,  studied  with  a  chilly 
terror  the  workings  of  his  face,  weighed  and 
re  weighed  his  words  in  absence,  agonized  her 
self  with  new  and  ever  new  suspicions ;  and 
then,  when  these  had  accumulated  beyond 
endurance,  seized  them  convulsively  and  threw 
them  all  away.  Then,  coming  back  to  him 
with  a  great  overwhelming  ardor  of  affection, 
she  poured  upon  him  more  and  more  in  pro 
portion  as  he  gave  her  less. 


160  Malbonc. 

Sometimes  in  these  moments  of  renewed 
affection  he  half  gave  words  to  his  remorse, 
accused  himself  before  her  of  unnamed  wrong, 
and  besought  her  to  help  him  return  to  his 
better  self.  These  were  the  most  dangerous 
moments  of  all,  for  such  appeals  made  tender 
ness  and  patience  appear  a  duty  ;  she  must 
put  away  her  doubts  as  sins,  and  hold  him  to 
her ;  she  must  refuse  to  see  his  signs  of  falter 
ing  faith,  or  treat  them  as  mere  symptoms  of 
ill  health.  Should  not  a  wife  cling  the  closer 
to  her  husband  in  proportion  as  he  seemed 
alienated  through  the  wanderings  of  disease  ? 
And  was  not  this  her  position?  So  she 
said  within  herself,  and  meanwhile  it  was 
not  hard  to  penetrate  her  changing  thoughts, 
at  least  for  so  keen  an  observer  as  Aunt 
Jane.  Hope,  at  length,  almost  ceased  to 
speak  of  Malbone,  and  revealed  her  grief  by 
this  evasion,  as  the  robin  reveals  her  nest  by 
flitting  from  it. 

Yet  there  were  times  when  he  really  tried 
to  force  himself  into  a  revival  of  this  calmer 
emotion.  He  studied  Hope's  beauty  with  his 
eyes,  he  pondered  on  all  her  nobleness.  He 
wished  to  bring  his  whole  heart  back  to  her, 
• —  or  at  least  wished  that  he  wished  it.  But 


Malbone.  161 

hearts  that  have  educated  themselves  into 
faithlessness  must  sooner  or  later  share  the 
suffering  they  give.  Love  will  be  avenged  on 
them.  Nothing  could  have  now  recalled  this 
epicure  in  passion,  except,  possibly,  a  little 
withholding  or  semi-coquetry  on  Hope's  part, 
and  this  was  utterly  impossible  for  her.  Ab 
solute  directness  was  a  part  of  her  nature  ; 
she  could  die,  but  not  manoeuvre. 

It  actually  diminished  Hope's  hold  on  Philip, 
that  she  had  at  this  time  the  whole  field  to 
herself.  Emilia  had  gone  for  a  few  weeks  to 
the  mountains,  with  the  household  of  which 
she  was  a  guest.  An  ideal  and  unreasonable 
passion  is  strongest  in  absence,  when  the 
dream  is  all  pure  dream,  and  safe  from  the 
discrepancies  of  daily  life.  When  the  two 
girls  were  together,  Emilia  often  showed  her 
self  so  plainly  Hope's  inferior,  that  it  jarred 
on  Philip's  fine  perceptions.  But  in  Emilia's 
absence  the  spell  of  temperament,  or  what 
ever  else  brought  them  together,  resumed 
its  sway  unchecked  ;  she  became  one  great 
magnet  of  attraction,  and  all  the  currents 
of  the  universe  appeared  to  flow  from  the 
direction  where  her  eyes  were  shining.  When 
she  was  out  of  sight,  he  needed  to  make  no 


1 62  Malbone. 

allowance  for  her  defects,  to  reproach  himself 
with  no  overt  acts  of  disloyalty  to  Hope,  to 
recognize  no  criticisms  of  his  own  intellect 
or  conscience.  He  could  resign  himself  to  his 
reveries,  and  pursue  them  into  new  subtleties 
day  by  day. 

There  was  Mrs.  Meredith's  house,  too, 
where  they  had  been  so  happy.  And  now 
the  blinds  were  pitilessly  closed,  all  but  one 
where  the  Venetian  slats  had  slipped,  and 
stood  half  open  as  if  some  dainty  fingers  held 
them,  and  some  lovely  eyes  looked  through. 
He  gazed  so  long  and  so  often  on  that  silent 
house,  —  by  day,  when  the  scorching  sunshine 
searched  its  pores  as  if  to  purge  away  every 
haunting  association,  or  by  night,  when  the 
mantle  of  darkness  hung  tenderly  above  it, 
and  seemed  to  collect  the  dear  remembrances 
again, — that  his  fancy  by  degrees  grew  mor 
bid,  and  its  pictures  unreal.  "  It  is  impossi 
ble,"  he  one  day  thought  to  himself,  "that 
she  should  have  lived  in  that  room  so  long, 
sat  in  that  window,  dreamed  on  that  couch, 
reflected  herself  in  that  mirror,  breathed  that 
air,  without  somehow  detaching  invisible  fibres 
of  her  being,  delicate  films  of  herself,  that 
must  gradually,  she  being  gone,  draw  together 


M alb  one.  163 

into  a  separate  individuality  an  image  not 
quite  bodiless,  that  replaces  her  in  her  absence, 
as  the  holy  Theocrite  was  replaced  by  the 
angel.  If  there  are  ghosts  of  the  dead,  why 
not  ghosts  of  the  living  also  ? "  This  lover's 
fancy  so  pleased  him  that  he  brought  to  bear 
upon  it  the  whole  force  of  his  imagination, 
and  it  grew  stronger  day  by  day.  To  him, 
thenceforth,  the  house  was  haunted,  and  all 
its  floating  traces  of  herself  visible  or  invisible, 

—  from  the  ribbon  that  he  saw  entangled  in 
the  window-blind  to  every  intangible  and  fan 
cied  atom  she  had  imparted  to  the  atmosphere, 

—  came  at  last    to  organize  themselves  into 
one  phantom  shape  for  him  and  looked  out,  a 
wraith    of    Emilia,    through    those    relentless 
blinds.     As   the  vision  grew  more  vivid,  he 
saw  the  dim  figure  moving  through  the  house, 
wan,  restless,  tender,  lingering  where  they  had 
lingered,  haunting  every  nook  where  they  had 
been   happy  once.     In    the   windy  meanings 
of  the  silent  night  he  could  put  his  ear  at  the 
keyhole,  and  could    fancy  that  he   heard  the 
wild  signals  of  her  love  and  despair. 


1 64  Malbone. 

XV. 
ACROSS  THE   BAY. 

THE  children,  as  has  been  said,  were  all 
devoted  to  Malbone,  and  this  was,  in  a 
certain  degree,  to  his  credit.  But  it  is  a  mis 
take  to  call  children  good  judges  of  character, 
except  in  one  direction,  namely,  their  own. 
They  understand  it,  up  to  the  level  of  their 
own  stature  ;  they  know  who  loves  them,  but 
not  who  loves  virtue.  Many  a  sinner  has  a 
great  affection  for  children,  and  no  child  will 
ever  detect  the  sins  of  such  a  friend  ;  because, 
toward  them,  the  sins  do  not  exist. 

The  children,  therefore,  all  loved  Philip,  and 
yet  they  turned  with  delight,  when  out-door 
pleasures  were  in  hand,  to  the  strong  and 
adroit  Harry.  Philip  inclined  to  the  daintier 
exercises,  fencing,  billiards,  riding ;  but  Har 
ry's  vigorous  physique  enjoyed  hard  work. 
He  taught  all  the  household  to  swim,  for 
instance.  Jenny,  aged  five,  a  sturdy,  deep- 
chested  little  thing,  seemed  as  amphibious  as 
himself.  She  could  already  swim  alone,  but 


Malbone.  165 

she  liked  to  keep  close  to  him,  as  all  young 
animals  do  to  their  elders  in  the  water,  not 
seeming  to  need  actual  support,  but  stronger 
for  the  contact.  Her  favorite  position,  how 
ever,,  was  on  his  back,  where  she  triumphantly 
clung,  grasping  his  bathing-dress  with  one 
hand,  swinging  herself  to  and  fro,  dipping  her 
head  beneath  the  water,  singing  and  shouting, 
easily  shifting  her  position  when  he  wished  to 
vary  his,  and  floating  by  him  like  a  little  fish, 
when  he  was  tired  of  supporting  her.  It  was 
pretty  to  see  the  child  in  her  one  little  crimson 
garment,  her  face  flushed  with  delight,  her  fair 
hair  glistening  from  the  water,  and  the  waves 
rippling  and  dancing  round  her  buoyant  form. 
As  Harry  swam  farther  and  farther  out,  his 
head  was  hidden  from  view  by  her  small  per 
son,  and  she  might  have  passed  for  a  red  sea- 
bird  rocking  on  the  gentle  waves.  It  was  one 
of  the  regular  delights  of  the  household  to  see 
them  bathe. 

Kate  came  in  to  Aunt  Jane's  room,  one 
August  morning,  to  say  that  they  were  going 
to  the  water-side.  How  differently  people 
may  enter  a  room  !  Hope  always  came  in  as 
the  summer  breeze  comes,  quiet,  strong,  soft, 
fragrant,  resistless.  Emilia  never  seemed  to 


1 66  Malbonc. 

come  in  at  all  ;  you  looked  up,  and  she  had 
somehow  drifted  where  she  stood,  pleading, 
evasive,  lovely.  This  was  especially  the  case 
where  one  person  was  awaiting  her  alone  ; 
with  two  she  was  more  fearless,  with  a  dozen 
she  was  buoyant,  and  with  a  hundred  she  for 
got  herself  utterly  and  was  a  spirit  of  irresist 
ible  delight. 

But  Kate  entered  any  room,  whether  nur 
sery  or  kitchen,  as  if  it  were  the  private  boudoir 
of  a  princess  and  she  the  favorite  maid  of 
honor.  Thus  it  was  she  came  that  morning 
to  Aunt  Jane. 

"We  are  going  down  to  see  the  bathers, 
dear,"  said  Kate.  "  Shall  you  miss  me  ?  " 

"  I  miss  you  every  minute,"  said  her  aunt, 
decisively.  "  But  I  shall  do  very  well.  I  have 
delightful  times  here  by  myself.  What  a  ridic 
ulous  man  it  was  who  said  that  it  was  impossi 
ble  to  imagine  a  woman's  laughing  at  her  own 
comic  fancies.  I  sit  and  laugh  at  my  own 
nonsense  very  often," 

"  It  is  a  shame  to  waste  it,"  said  Kate. 

"  It  is  a  blessing  that  any  of  it  is  disposed 
of  while  you  are  not  here,"  said  Aunt  Jane. 
"  You  have  quite  enough  of  it." 

"We  never  have  enough,"  said  Kate.    "And 


Malbone.  167 

we  never  can  make  you  repeat  any  of  yester 
day's." 

"  Of  course  not,"  said  Aunt  Jane.  "  Non 
sense  must  have  the  dew  on  it,  or  it  is  good 
for  nothing." 

"  So  you  are  really  happiest  alone  ? " 

"  Not  so  happy  as  when  you  are  with  me,  — 
you  or  Hope.  I  like  to  have  Hope  with  me 
now ;  she  does  me  good.  Really,  I  do  not 
care  for  anybody  else.  Sometimes  I  think  if 
I  could  always  have  four  or  five  young  kittens 
by  me,  in  a  champagne-basket,  with  a  nurse  to 
watch  them,  I  should  be  happier.  But  perhaps 
not ;  they  would  grow  up  so  fast ! " 

"  Then  I  will  leave  you  alone  without  com 
punction,"  said  Kate. 

"  I  am  not  alone,"  said  Aunt  Jane  ;  "  I  have 
my  man  in  the  boat  to  watch  through  the 
window.  What  a  singular  being  he  is  !  I 
think  he  spends  hours  in  that  boat,  and  what 
he  does  I  can't  conceive.  There  it  is,  quietly 
anchored,  and  there  is  he  in  it.  I  never  saw 
anybody  but  myself  who  could  get  up  so  much 
industry  out  of  nothing.  He  has  all  his  house 
work  there,  a  broom  and  a  duster,  and  I  dare 
say  he  has  a  cooking-stove  and  a  gridiron. 
He  sits  a  little  while,  then  he  stoops  down, 


1 68  Malbone. 

then  he  goes  to  the  other  end.  Sometimes  he 
goes  ashore  in  that  absurd  little  tub,  with  a 
stick  that  he  twirls  at  one  end." 

"  That  is  called  sculling,"  interrupted  Kate. 

"  Sculling  !  I  suppose  he  runs  for  a  baked 
potato.  Then  he  goes  back.  He  is  Robinson 
Crusoe  on  an  island  that  never  keeps  still  a 
single  instant.  It  is  all  he  has,  and  he  never 
looks  away,  and  never  wants  anything  more. 
So  I  have  him  to  watch.  Think  of  living  so 
near  a  beaver  or  a  water-rat  with  clothes  on  ! 
Good-by.  Leave  the  door  ajar,  it  is  so  warm." 

And  Kate  went  down  to  the  landing.  It 
was  near  the  "baptismal  shore,"  where  every 
Sunday  the  young  people  used  to  watch  the 
immersions  ;  they  liked  to  see  the  crowd  of 
spectators,  the  eager  friends,  the  dripping  con 
vert,  the  serene  young  minister,  the  old  men 
and  girls  who  burst  forth  in  song  as  the 
new  disciple  rose  from  the  waves.  It  was  the 
weekly  festival  in  that  region,  and  the  sun 
shine  and  the  ripples  made  it  gladdening,  not 
gloomy.  Every  other  day  in  the  week  the 
children  of  the  fishermen  waded  waist-deep  in 
the  water,  and  played  at  baptism. 

Near  this  shore  stood  the  family  bathing- 
house  ;  and  the  girls  came  down  to  sit  in  its 


Malbone.  1 69 

shadow  and  watch  the  swimming.  It  was  late 
in  August,  and  on  the  first  of  September 
Emilia  was  to  be  married. 

Nothing  looked  cool,  that  day,  but  the  bay 
and  those  who  were  going  into  it.  Out  came 
Hope  from  the  bathing-house,  in  a  new  bath 
ing-dress  of  dark  blue,  which  was  evidently 
what  the  others  had  come  forth  to  behold. 

"  Hope,  what  an  imposter  you  are ! "  cried 
Kate,  instantly.  "  You  declined  all  my  prof 
fers  of  aid  in  cutting  that  dress,  and  now  see 
how  it  fits  you  !  You  never  looked  so  beauti 
fully  in  your  life.  There  is  not  such  another 
bathing-dress  in  Oldport,  nor  such  a  figure  to 
wear  it." 

And  she  put  both  her  arms  round  that  sup 
ple,  stately  waist,  that  might  have  belonged  to 
a  Greek  goddess,  or  to  some  queen  in  the 
Nibelungen  Lied. 

The  party  watched  the  swimmers  as  they 
struck  out  over  the  clear  expanse.  It  was 
high  noon  ;  the  fishing-boats  were  all  off,  but 
a  few  pleasure-boats  swung  different  ways  at 
their  moorings,  in  the  perfect  calm.  The 
white  light-house  stood  reflected  opposite,  at 
the  end  of  its  long  pier  ;  a  few  vessels  lay  at 
anchor,  with  their  sails  up  to  dry,  but  with 
8 


1 70  Malbone. 

that  deserted  look  which  coasters  in  port  are 
wont  to  wear.  A  few  fishes  dimpled  the  still 
surface,  and  as  the  three  swam  out  farther  and 
farther,  their  merry  voices  still  sounded  close 
at  hand.  Suddenly  they  all  clapped  their 
hands  and  called  ;  then  pointed  forward  to 
the  light-house,  across  the  narrow  harbor. 

"  They  are  going  to  swim  across,"  said  Kate. 
"  What  creatures  they  are  !  Hope  and  litUe 
Jenny  have  always  begged  for  it,  and  now 
Harry  thinks  it  is  so  still  a  day  they  can  safely 
venture.  It  is  more  than  half  a  mile.  See ! 
he  has  called  that  boy  in  a  boat,  and  he  will 
keep  near  them.  They  have  swum  farther 
than  that  along  the  shore." 

So  the  others  went  away  with  no  fears. 

Hope  said  afterwards  that  she  never  swam 
with  such  delight  as  on  that  day.  The  water 
seemed  to  be  peculiarly  thin  and  clear,  she 
said,  as  well  as  tranquil,  and  to  retain  its  usu 
al  buoyancy  without  its  density.  It  gave  a 
delicious  sense  of  freedom  ;  she  seemed  to 
swim  in  air,  and  felt  singularly  secure.  For 
the  first  time  she  felt  what  she  had  always 
wished  to  experience,  —  that  swimming  was 
as  natural  as  walking,  and  might  be  indefinite 
ly  prolonged.  Her  strength  seemed  limitless, 


Malbone.  17 1 

she  struck  out  more  and  more  strongly ;  she 
splashed  and  played  with  little  Jenny,  when 
the  child  began  to  grow  weary  of  the  long 
motion.  A  fisherman's  boy  in  a  boat  rowed 
slowly  along  by  their  side. 

Nine  tenths  of  the  distance  had  been  ac 
complished,  when  the  little  girl  grew  quite 
impatient,  and  Hope  bade  Harry  swim  on 
before  her,  and  land  his  charge.  Light  and 
buoyant  as  the  child  was,  her  tightened  clasp 
had  begun  to  tell  on  him. 

"It  tires  you,  Hal,  to  bear  that  weight  so 
long,  and  you  know  I  have  nothing  to  carry. 
You  must  see  that  I  am  not  in  the  least  tired, 
only  a  little  dazzled  by  the  sun.  Here,  Char 
ley,  give  me  your  hat,  and  then  row  on  with 
Mr.  Harry."  She  put  on  the  boy's  torn  straw 
hat,  and  they  yielded  to  her  wish.  People 
almost  always  yielded  to  Hope's  wishes  when 
she  expressed  them,  —  it  was  so  very  seldom. 

Somehow  the  remaining  distance  seemed 
very  great,  as  Hope  saw  them  glide  away, 
leaving  her  in  the  water  alone,  her  feet  unsup 
ported  by  any  firm  element,  the  bright  and 
pitiless  sky  arching  far  above  her,  and  her 
head  burning  with  more  heat  than  she  had 
liked  to  own.  She  was  conscious  of  her  full 


172  M alb  one. 

strength,  and  swam  more  vigorously  than 
ever ;  but  her  head  was  hot  and  her  ears 
rang,  and  she  felt  chilly  vibrations  passing  up 
and  down  her  sides,  that  were  like,  she  fan 
cied,  the  innumerable  fringing  oars  of  the  little 
jelly-fishes  she  had  so  often  watched.  Her 
body  felt  almost  unnaturally  strong,  and  she 
took  powerful  strokes  ;  but  it  seemed  as  if  her 
heart  went  out  into  them  and  left  a  vacant 
cavity  within.  More  and  more  her  life  seemed 
boiling  up  into  her  head  ;  queer  fancies  came 
to  her,  as,  for  instance,  that  she  was  an  invert 
ed  thermometer  with  the  mercury  all  ascend 
ing  into  a  bulb  at  the  top.  She  shook  her 
head  and  the  fancy  cleared  away,  and  then 
others  came. 

She  began  to  grow  seriously  anxious,  but 
the  distance  was  diminishing ;  Harry  was 
almost  at  the  steps  with  the  child,  and  the 
boy  had  rowed  his  skiff  round  the  breakwater 
out  of  sight ;  a  young  fisherman  leaned  over 
the  railing  with  his  back  to  her,  watching  the 
lobster-catchers  on  the  other  side.  She  was 
almost  in  ;  it  was  only  a  slight  dizziness,  yet 
she  could  not  see  the  light-house.  Concen 
trating  all  her  efforts,  she  shut  her  eyes  and 
swam  on,  her  arms  still  unaccountably  vigor- 


Malbone.  1 73 

ous,  though  the  rest  of  her  body  seemed  losing 
itself  in  languor.  The  sound  in  her  ear  had 
grown  to  a  roar,  as  of  many  mill-wheels.  It 
seemed  a  long  distance  that  she  thus  swam 
with  her  eyes  closed.  Then  she  half  opened 
her  eyes,  and  the  breakwater  seemed  all  in 
motion,  with  tier  above  tier  of  eager  faces 
looking  down  on  her.  In  an  instant  there 
was  a  sharp  splash  close  beside  her,  and  she 
felt  herself  grasped  and  drawn  downwards, 
with  a  whirl  of  something  just  above  her,  and 
then  all  consciousness  went  out  as  suddenly  as 
when  ether  brings  at  last  to  a  patient,  after 
the  roaring  and  the  tumult  in  his  brain,  its 
blessed  foretaste  of  the  deliciousness  of  death. 
When  Hope  came  again  to  consciousness, 
she  found  herself  approaching  her  own  pier 
in  a  sail-boat,  with  several  very  wet  gentle 
men  around  her,  and  little  Jenny  nestled  close 
to  her,  crying  as  profusely  as  if  her  pretty 
scarlet  bathing-dress  were  being  wrung  out 
through  her  eyes.  Hope  asked  no  questions, 
and  hardly  felt  the  impulse  to  inquire  what 
had  happened.  The  truth  was,  that  in  the 
temporary  dizziness  produced  by  her  pro 
longed  swim,  she  had  found  herself  in  the 
track  of  a  steamboat  that  was  passing  the 


1 74  Malbone. 

pier,  unobserved  by  her  brother.  A  young 
man,  leaping  from  the  deck,  had  caught  her 
in  his  arms,  and  had  dived  with  her  below  the 
paddle-wheels,  just  as  they  came  upon  her. 
It  was  a  daring  act,  but  nothing  else  could 
have  saved  her.  When  they  came  to  the  sur 
face,  they  had  been  picked  up  by  Aunt  Jane's 
Robinson  Crusoe,  who  had  at  last  unmoored 
his  pilot-boat  and  was  rounding  the  light-house 
for  the  outer  harbor. 

She  and  the  child  were  soon  landed,  and 
given  over  to  the  ladies.  Due  attention  was 
paid  to  her  young  rescuer,  whose  dripping 
garments  seemed  for  the  moment  as  glorious 
as  a  blood-stained  flag.  He  seemed  a  simple, 
frank  young  fellow  of  French  or  German  ori 
gin,  but  speaking  English  remarkably  well  ;  he 
was  not  high-bred,  by  any  means,  but  had  ap 
parently  the  culture  of  an  average  German  of 
the  middle  class.  Harry  fancied  that  he  had 
seen  him  before,  and  at  last  traced  back  the 
impression  of  his  features  to  the  ball  for  the 
French  officers.  It  turned  out,  on  inquiry, 
that  he  had  a  brother  in  the  service,  and  on 
board  the  corvette ;  but  he  himself  was  a 
commercial  agent,  now  in  America  with  a 
view  to  business,  though  he  had  made  several 


Malbone.  1 75 

voyages  as  mate  of  a  vessel,  and  would  not 
object  to  some  such  berth  as  that.  He 
promised  to  return  and  receive  the  thanks  of 
the  family,  read  with  interest  the  name  on 
Harry's  card,  seemed  about  to  ask  a  question, 
but  forbore,  and  took  his  leave  amid  the  gen 
eral  confusion,  without  even  giving  his  address. 
When  sought  next  day,  he  was  not  to  be 
found,  and  to  the  children  he  at  once  became 
as  much  a  creature  of  romance  as  the  sea- 
serpent  or  the  Flying  Dutchman. 

Even  Hope's  strong  constitution  felt  the 
shock  of  this  adventure.  She  was  confined 
to  her  room  for  a  week  or  two,  but  begged 
that  there  might  be  no  postponement  of  the 
wedding,  which,  therefore,  took  place  without 
her.  Her  illness  gave  excuse  for  a  privacy 
that  was  welcome  to  all  but  the  bridesmaids, 
and  suited  Malbone  best  of  all. 


1 76  Malbone. 


AVi. 
ON   THE   STAIRS. 

A  UGUST  drew  toward  its  close,  and  guests 
**•  departed  from  the  neighborhood. 

"  What  a  short  little  thing  summer  is,"  medi 
tated  Aunt  Jane,  "  and  butterflies  are  cater 
pillars  most  of  the  time  after  all.  How  quiet 
it  seems.  The  wrens  whisper  in  their  box 
above  the  window,  and  there  has  not  been  a 
blast  from  the  peacock  for  a  week.  He  seems 
ashamed  of  the  summer  shortness  of  his  tail. 
He  keeps  glancing  at  it  over  his  shoulder  to 
see  if  it  is  not  looking  better  than  yesterday, 
while  the  staring  eyes  of  the  old  tail  are  in  the 
bushes  all  about." 

"  Poor,  dear  little  thing ! "  said  coaxing 
Katie.  "  Is  she  tired  of  autumn,  before  it  is 
begun  ? " 

"  I  am  never  tired  of  anything,"  said  Aunt 
Jane,  "except  my  maid  Ruth,  and  I  should 
not  be  tired  of  her,  if  it  had  pleased  Heaven 
to  endow  her  with  sufficient  strength  of  mind 
to  sew  on  a  button.  Life  is  very  rich  to  me. 


Malbone,  177 

There  is  always  something  new  in  every  sea 
son  ;  though  to  be  sure  I  cannot  think  what 
novelty  there  is  just  now,  except  a  choice  va 
riety  of  spiders.  There  is  a  theory  that  spi 
ders  kill  flies.  But  I  never  miss  a  fly,  and 
there  does  not  seem  to  be  any  natural  scourge 
divinely  appointed  to  kill  spiders,  except  Ruth. 
Even  she  does  it  so  feebly,  that  I  see  them 
come  back  and  hang  on  their  webs  and  make 
faces  at  her.  I  suppose  they  are  faces  ;  I  do 
not  understand  their  anatomy,  but  it  must  be 
a  very  unpleasant  one. ' 

"  You  are  not  quite  satisfied  with  life,  to 
day,  dear,"  said  Kate  ;  "  I  fear  your  book  did 
not  end  to  your  satisfaction." 

"  It  did  end,  though,"  said  the  lady,  "  and 
that  is  something.  What  is  there  in  life 
so  difficult  as  to  stop  a  book  ? "  If  I  wrote 
one,  it  would  be  as  long  as  ten  '  Sir  Charles 
Grandisons,'  and  then  I  never  should  end  it, 
because  I  should  die.  And  there  would  be 
nobody  left  to  read  it,  because  each  reader 
would  have  been  dead  long  before." 

"  But  the  book  amused  you  ! "  interrupted 
Kate.  "  I  know  it  did." 

"  It  was  so  absurd  that  I  laughed  till  I 
cried  ;  and  it  makes  no  difference  whether 


1 78  Malbone. 

you  cry  laughing  or  cry  crying  ;  it  is  equally 
bad  when  your  glasses  come  off.  Never  mind. 
Whom  did  you  see  on  the  Avenue  ? " 

"  O,  we  saw  Philip  on  horseback.  He  rides 
so  beautifully ;  he  seems  one  with  his  horse." 

"  I  am  glad  of  it,"  interposed  her  aunt. 
"  The  riders  are  generally  so  inferior  to 
them." 

"  We  saw  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Lambert,  too. 
Emilia  stopped  and  asked  after  you,  and  sent 
you  her  love,  auntie." 

"  Love  ! "  cried  Aunt  Jane.  "  She  always 
does  that.  She  has  sent  me  love  enough  to 
rear  a  whole  family  on,  —  more  than  I  ever 
felt  for  anybody  in  all  my  days.  But  she  does 
not  really  love  any  one." 

"  I  hope  she  will  love  her  husband,"  said 
Kate,  rather  seriously. 

"  Mark  my  words,  Kate ! "  said  her  aunt. 
"  Nothing  but  unhappiness  will  ever  come  of 
that  marriage.  How  can  two  people  be  happy 
who  have  absolutely  nothing  in  common  ?  " 

"  But  no  two  people  have  just  the  same 
tastes,"  said  Kate,  "  except  Harry  and  myself. 
It  is  not  expected.  It  would  be  absurd  for 
two  people  to  be  divorced,  because  the  one 
preferred  white  bread  and  the  other  brown." 


Malbone.  1 79 

"They  would  be  divorced  very  soon,"  said 
Aunt  Jane,  "  for  the  one  who  ate  brown  bread 
would  not  live  long." 

"  But  it  is  possible  that  he  might  live,  auntie, 
in  spite  of  your  prediction.  And  perhaps 
people  may  be  happy,  even  if  you  and  I  do 
not  see  how." 

"  Nobody  ever  thinks  I  see  anything,"  said 
Aunt  Jane,  in  some  dejection.  "You  think 
I  am  nothing  in  the  world  but  a  sort  of  old 
oyster,  making  amusement  for  people,  and 
having  no  more  to  do  with  real  life  than  oys 
ters  have." 

"No,  dearest!"  cried  Kate.  "You  have  a 
great  deal  to  do  with  all  our  lives.  You  are  a 
dear  old  insidious  sapper-and-miner,  looking 
at  first  very  inoffensive,  and  then  working 
your  way  into  our  affections,  and  spoiling  us 
with  coaxing.  How  you  behave  about  chil 
dren,  for  instance  ! " 

"  How  ? "  said  the  other  meekly.  "  As  well 
as  I  can." 

"  But  you  pretend  that  you  dislike  them." 

"  But  I  do  dislike  them.  How  can  anybody 
help  it  ?  Hear  them  swearing  at  this  mo 
ment,  boys  of  five,  paddling  in  the  water 
there !  Talk  about  the  murder  of  the  inno- 


1 80  Malbonc. 

cents !  There  are  so  few  innocents  to  be 
murdered !  If  I  only  had  a  gun  and  could 
shoot ! " 

"  You  may  not  like  those  particular  boys," 
said  Kate,  "  but  you  like  good,  well-behaved 
children,  very  much." 

"  It  takes  so  many  to  take  care  of  them  ! 
People  drive  by  here,  with  carriages  so  large 
that  two  of  the  largest  horses  can  hardly 
draw  them,  and  all  full  of  those  little  beings. 
They  have  a  sort  of  roof,  too,  and  seem  to 
expect  to  be  out  in  all  weathers." 

"  If  you  had  a  family  of  children,  perhaps 
you  would  find  such  a  travelling  caravan  very 
convenient,"  said  Kate. 

"  If  I  had  such  a  family,  said  her  aunt,  "  I 
would  have  a  separate  governess  and  guar 
dian  for  each,  very  moral  persons.  They 
should  come  when  each  child  was  two,  and 
stay  till  it  was  twenty.  The  children  should 
all  live  apart,  in  order  not  to  quarrel,  and 
should  meet  once  or  twice  a  day  and  bow  to 
each  other.  I  think  that  each  should  learn  a 
different  language,  so  as  not  to  converse,  and 
then,  perhaps,  they  would  not  get  each  other 
into  mischief." 

"  I  am  sure,  auntie,"  said  Kate,  "  you  have 


Malbone.  181 

missed  our  small  nephews  and  nieces  ever 
since  their  visit  ended.  How  still  the  house 
has  been  ! " 

» 

"  I  do  not  know,"  was  the  answer.  "  I  hear 
a  great  many  noises  about  the  house.  Some 
body  comes  in  late  at  night.  Perhaps  it  is 
Philip  ;  but  he  comes  very  softly  in,  wipes  his 
feet  very  gently,  like  a  clean  thief,  and  goes 
up  stairs." 

"O  auntie!"  said  Kate,  "you  know  you 
have  got  over  all  such  fancies." 

"  They  are  not  fancies,"  said  Aunt  Jane. 
"Things  do  happen  in  houses  !  Did  I  not 
look  under  the  bed  for  a  thief  during  fifteen 
years,  and  find  one  at  last  ?  Why  should  I 
not  be  allowed  to  hear  something  now  ?  " 

"  But,  dear  Aunt  Jane,"  said  Kate,  "  you 
never  told  me  this  before." 

"  No,"  said  she.  "  I  was  beginning  to  tell 
you  the  other  day,  but  Ruth  was  just  bringing 
in  my  handkerchiefs,  and  she  had  used  so 
much  bluing  they  looked  as  if  they  had  been 
washed  in  heaven,  so  that  it  was  too  out 
rageous,  and  I  forgot  everything  else." 

"  But  do  you  really  hear  anything  ?  " 

"  Yes,'  said  her  aunt.  "  Ruth  declares  she 
hears  noises  in  those  closets  that  I  had 


1 82  Ma  I  bone. 

nailed  up,  you  know ;  but  that  is  nothing  ;  of 
course  she  does.  Rats.  What  I  hear  at  night 
is  the  creaking  of  stairs,  when  I  know  that 
nobody  ought  to  be  stirring.  If  you  observe, 
you  will  hear  it  too.  At  least,  I  should  think 
you  would,  only  that  somehow  everything 
always  seems  to  stop,  when  it  is  necessary 
to  prove  that  I  am  foolish." 

The  girls  had  no  especial  engagement  that 
evening,  and  so  got  into  a  great  excitement  on 
the  stairway  over  Aunt  Jane's  solicitudes. 
They  convinced  themselves  that  they  heard  all 
sorts  of  things,  —  footfalls  on  successive  steps, 
the  creak  of  a  plank,  the  brushing  of  an  arm 
against  a  wall,  the  jar  of  some  suspended 
object  that  was  stirred  in  passing.  Once 
they  heard  something  fall  on  the  floor,  and  roll 
from  step  to  step  ;  and  yet  they  themselves 
stood  on  the  stairway,  and  nothing  passed. 
Then  for  some  time  there  was  silence,  but 
they  would  have  persisted  in  their  observa 
tions,  had  not  Philip  come  in  from  Mrs.  Mere 
dith's  in  the  midst  of  it,  so  that  the  whole 
thing  turned  into  a  frolic,  and  they  sat  on  the 
stairs  and  told  ghost  stories  half  the  night. 


M alb  one.  183 

XVII. 
DISCOVERY. 

'  I  "HE  next  evening  Kate  and  Philip  went 
J-  to  a  ball.     As  Hope  was  passing  through 
the  hall  late  in  the  evening,  she  heard  a  sud 
den,    sharp    cry    somewhere     in    the    upper 
regions,    that    sounded,    she   thought,   like    a 
woman's   voice.       She    stopped    to   hear,   but 
there  was  silence.     It  seemed  to  come  from 
the   direction   of   Malbone's  room,  which  was 
in  the  third  story.     Again  came  the  cry,  more 
gently,  ending  in  a  sort  of  sobbing  monologue. 
Gliding   rapidly    up    stairs   in    the   dark,    she 
paused    at    Philip's    deserted    room,   but    the 
door   was   locked,    and     there   was    profound 
stillness.     She   then   descended,  and  pausing 
at  the  great  landing,   heard   other  steps  de 
scending  also.     Retreating  to  the  end  of  the 
hall,  she  hastily  lighted  a  candle,  when  the 
steps   ceased.     With   her   accustomed    nerve, 
wishing    to    explore    the    thing    thoroughly, 
she  put  out  the  light  and  kept  still.     As  she 
expected,  the  footsteps  presently  recommenced, 


1 84  Malbone. 

descending  stealthily,  but  drawing  no  nearer, 
and  seeming  rather  like  sounds  from  an 
adjoining  house,  heard  through  a  party-wall. 
This  was  impossible,  as  the  house  stood  alone. 
Flushed  with  excitement,  she  relighted  the 
hall  candles,  and,  taking  one  of  them,  searched 
the  whole  entry  and  stairway,  going  down  even 
to  the  large,  old-fashioned  cellar. 

Looking  about  her  in  this  unfamiliar  region, 
her  eye  fell  on  a  door  that  seemed  to  open  into 
the  wall ;  she  had  noticed  a  similar  door  on 
the  story  above,  —  one  of  the  closet  doors  that 
had  been  nailed  up  by  Aunt  Jane's  order.  As 
she  looked,  however,  a  chill  breath  blew  in 
from  another  direction,  extinguishing  her  lamp. 
This  air  came  from  the  outer  door  of  the  cel 
lar,  and  she  had  just  time  to  withdraw  into  a 
corner  before  a  man's  steps  approached,  pass 
ing  close  by  her. 

Even  Hope's  strong  nerves  had  begun  to 
yield,  and  a  cold  shudder  went  through  her. 
Not  daring  to  move,  she  pressed  hersjelf 
against  the  wall,  and  her  heart  seemed  to 
stop  as  the  unseen  stranger  passed.  Instead 
of  his  ascending  where  she  had  come  down, 
as  she  had  expected,  she  heard  him  grope  his 
way  toward  the  door  she  had  seen  in  the  wall. 


Malbone.  185 

There  he  seemed  to  find  a  stairway,  and  when 
his  steps  were  thus  turned  from  her,  she  was 
seized  by  a  sudden  impulse  and  followed  him, 
groping  her  way  as  she  could.  She  remem 
bered  that  the  girls  had  talked  of  secret  stair 
ways  in  that  house,  though  she  had  no  con 
ception  whither  they  could  lead,  unless  to 
some  of  the  shut-up  closets. 

She  steadily  followed,  treading  cautiously 
upon  each  creaking  step.  The  stairway  was 
very  narrow,  and  formed  a  regular  spiral  as  in 
a  turret.  The  darkness  and  the  curving  mo 
tion  confused  her  brain,  and  it  was  impossible 
to  tell  how  high  in  the  house  she  was,  except 
when  once  she  put  her  hand  upon  what  was 
evidently  a  door,  and  moreover  saw  through 
its  cracks  the  lamp  she  had  left  burning  in  the 
upper  hall.  This  glimpse  of  reality  reassured 
her.  She  had  begun  to  discover  where  she 
was.  The  doors  which  Aunt  Jane  had  closed 
gave  access,  not  to  mere  closets,  but  to  a  spi 
ral  stairway,  which  evidently  went  from  top  to 
bottom  of  the  house,  and  was  known  to  some 
one  else  beside  herself. 

Relieved  of  that  slight  shudder  at  the  super 
natural  which  sometimes  affects  the  healthiest 
nerves,  Hope  paused  to  consider.  To  alarm 


1 86  Malbonc. 

the  neighborhood  was  her  first  thought.  A 
slight  murmuring  from  above  dispelled  it ;  she 
must  first  reconnoitre  a  few  steps  farther.  As 
she  ascended  a  little  way,  a  gleam  shone  upon 
her,  and  down  the  damp  stairway  came  a  fra 
grant  odor,  as  from  some  perfumed  chamber. 
Then  a  door  was  shut  and  reopened.  Eager 
beyond  expression,  she  followed  on.  Another 
step,  and  she  stood  at  the  door  of  Malbone's 
apartment. 

The  room  was  brilliant  with  light  ;  the 
doors  and  windows  were  heavily  draped. 
Fruit  and  flowers  and  wine  were  on  the 
table.  On  the  sofa  lay  Emilia  in  a  gay  ball- 
dress,  sunk  in  one  of  her  motionless  trances, 
while  Malbone,  pale  with  terror,  was  deluging 
her  brows  with  the  water  he  had  just  brought 
from  the  well  below. 

Hope  stopped  a  moment  and  leaned  against 
the  door,  as  her  eyes  met  Malbone's.  Then 
she  made  her  way  to  a  chair,  and  leaning  on 
the  back  of  it,  which  she  fingered  convulsively, 
looked  with  bewildered  eyes  and  compressed 
lips  from  the  one  to  the  other.  Malbone  tried 
to  speak,  but  failed  ;  tried  again,  and  brought 
forth  only  a  whisper  that  broke  into  clearer 
speech  as  the  words  went  on.  "  No  use  to 


Malbone.  187 

explain,"  he  said.  "  Lambert  is  in  New  York. 
Mrs.  Meredith  is  expecting  her  —  to-night  — 
after  the  ball.  What  can  we  do  ?  " 

Hope  covered  her  face  as  he  spoke ;  she 
could  bear  anything  better  than  to  have  him 
say  "  we,"  as  if  no  gulf  had  opened  between 
them.  She  sank  slowly  on  her  knees  behind 
her  chair,  keeping  it  as  a  sort  of  screen  be 
tween  herself  and  these  two  people, — the 
counterfeits,  they  seemed,  of  her  lover  and 
her  sister.  If  the  roof  in  falling  to  crush 
them  had  crushed  her  also,  she  could  scarcely 
have  seemed  more  rigid  or  more  powerless. 
It  passed,  and  the  next  moment  she  was  on 
her  feet  again,  capable  of  action. 

"  She  must  be  taken,"  she  said  very  clearly, 
but  in  a  lower  tone  than  usual,  "  to  my  cham 
ber."  Then  pointing  to  the  candles,  she  said, 
more  huskily,  "We  must  not  be  seen.  Put 
them  out."  Every  syllable  seemed  to  exhaust 
her.  But  as  Philip  obeyed  her  words,  he  saw 
her  move  suddenly  and  stand  by  Emilia's  side. 

She  put  out  both  arms  as  if  to  lift  the  young 
girl,  and  carry  her  away. 

"You  cannot,"  said  Philip,  putting  her  gen 
tly  aside,  while  she  shrank  from  his  touch. 
Then  he  took  Emilia  in  his  arms  and  bore  her 
to  the  door,  Hope  preceding. 


1 88  Malbone. 

Motioning  him  to  pause  a  moment,  she 
turned  the  lock  softly,  and  looked  out  into 
the  dark  entry.  All  was  still.  She  went  out, 
and  he  followed  with  his  motionless  burden. 
They  walked  stealthily,  like  guilty  things,  yet 
every  slight  motion  seemed  to  ring  in  their 
ears.  It  was  chilly,  and  Hope  shivered. 
Through  the  great  open  window  on  the  stair 
way  a  white  fog  peered  in  at  them,  and  the 
distant  fog-whistle  came  faintly  through  ;  it 
seemed  as  if  the  very  atmosphere  were  con 
densing  about  them,  to  isolate  the  house  in 
which  such  deeds  were  done.  The  clock 
struck  twelve,  and  it  seemed  as  if  it  struck 
a  thousand. 

When  they  reached  Hope's  door,  she  turned 
and  put  out  her  arms  for  Emilia,  as  for  a 
child.  Every  expression  had  now  gone  from 
Hope's  face  but  a  sort  of  stony  calmness, 
which  put  her  infinitely  farther  from  Malbone 
than  had  the  momentary  struggle.  As  he 
gave  the  girlish  form  into  arms  that  shook  and 
trembled  beneath  its  weight,  he  caught  a 
glimpse  in  the  pier-glass  of  their  two  white 
faces,  and  then,  looking  down,  saw  the  rose- 
tints  yet  lingering  on  Emilia's  cheek.  She, 
the  source  of  all  this  woe,  looked  the  only  rep- 


Malbone.  1 89 

resentative  of  innocence  between  two  guilty 
things. 

How  white  and  pure  and  maidenly  looked 
Hope's  little  room,  —  such  a  home  of  peace,  he 
thought,  till  its  door  suddenly  opened  to  ad 
mit  all  this  passion  and  despair  !  There  was 
a  great  sheaf  of  cardinal  flowers  on  the  table, 
and  their  petals  were  drooping,  as  if  reluctant 
to  look  on  him.  SchefFer's  Christus  Con  sola- 
tor  was  upon  the  walls,  and  the  benign  figure 
seemed  to  spread  wider  its  arms  of  mercy,  to 
take  in  a  few  sad  hearts  more. 

Hope  bore  Emilia  into  the  light  and  purity 
and  warmth,  while  Malbone  was  shut  out  into 
the  darkness  and  the  chill.  The  only  two 
things  to  which  he  clung  on  earth,  the  two 
women  between  whom  his  unsteady  heart 
had  vibrated,  and  both  whose  lives  had  been 
tortured  by  its  vacillation,  went  away  from 
his  sight  together,  the  one  victim  bearing  the 
other  victim  in  her  arms.  Never  any  more 
while  he  lived  would  either  of  them  be  his 
again;  and  had  Dante  "known  it  for  his  last 
glimpse  of  things  immortal  when  the  two 
lovers  floated  away  from  him  in  their  sad 
embrace,  he  would  have  had  no  such  sense 
of  utter  banishment  as  had  Malbone  then. 


igo 


Malbone. 


XVIII. 

HOPE'S   VIGIL. 

HAD  Emilia  chosen  out  of  life's  whole 
armory  of  weapons  the  means  of  dis 
arming  Hope,  she  could  have  found  nothing 
so  effectual  as  nature  had  supplied  in  her  un 
consciousness.  Helplessness  conquers.  There 
was  a  quality  in  Emilia  which  would  have 
always  produced  something  very  like  antago 
nism  in  Hope,  had  she  not  been  her  sister. 
Had  the  ungoverqed  girl  now  been  able  to 
utter  one  word  of  reproach,  had  her  eyes 
flashed  one  look  of  defiance,  had  her  hand 
made  one  triumphant  or  angry  gesture,  per 
haps  all  Hope's  outraged  womanhood  would 
have  coldly  nerved  itself  against  her.  But  it 
was  another  thing  to  see  those  soft  eyes  closed, 
those  delicate  hands  powerless,  those  pleading 
lips  scaled  ;  to  see  her  extended  in  graceful 
helplessness,  while  all  the  concentrated  drama 
of  emotion  revolved  around  her  unheeded,  as 
around  Cordelia  dead.  In  what  realms  was 
that  child's  mind  seeking  comfort ;  through 


Malbone.  191 

what  thin  air  of  dreams  did  that  restless  heart 
beat  its  pinions  ;  in  what  other  sphere  did  that 
untamed  nature  wander,  while  shame  and  sor 
row  waited  for  its  awakening  in  this  ? 

Hope  knelt  upon  the  floor,  still  too  much 
strained  and  bewildered  for  tears  or  even 
prayer,  a  little  way  from  Emilia.  Once  hav 
ing  laid  down  the  unconscious  form,  it  seemed 
for  a  moment  as  if  she  could  no  more  touch  it 
than  she  could  lay  her  hand  amid  flames.  A 
gap  of  miles,  of  centuries,  of  solar  systems, 
seemed  to  separate  these  two  young  girls, 
alone  within  the  same  chamber,  with  the  same 
stern  secret  to  keep,  and  so  near  that  the  hem 
of  their  garments  almost  touched  each  other 
on  the  soft  carpet.  Hope  felt  a  terrible  hard 
ness  closing  over  her  heart.  What  right  had 
this  cruel  creature,  with  her  fatal  witcheries, 
to  come  between  two  persons  who  might  have 
been  so  wholly  happy  ?  What  sorrow  would 
be  saved,  what  shame,  perhaps,  be  averted, 
should  those  sweet  beguiling  eyes  never  open, 
and  that  perfidious  voice  never  deceive  any 
more  ?  Why  tend  the  life  of  one  who  would 
leave  the  whole  world  happier,  purer,  freer, 
if  she  were  dead  ? 

In  a  tumult  of  thought,  Hope  went  and  sat 


192  Malbone. 

half-unconsciously  by  the  window.  There  was 
nothing  to  be  seen  except  the  steady  beacon 
of  the  light-house  and  a  pale-green  glimmer, 
like  an  earthly  star,  from  an  anchored  vessel. 
The  night  wind  came  softly  in,  soothing  her 
with  a  touch  like  a  mother's,  in  its  grateful 
coolness.  The  air  seemed  full  of  half-vibra 
tions,  sub-noises,  that  crowded  it  as  com 
pletely  as  do  the  insect  sounds  of  midsummer  ; 
yet  she  could  only  distinguish  the  ripple  be 
neath  her  feet,  and  the  rote  on  the  distant 
beach,  and  the  busy  wash  of  waters  against 
every  shore  and  islet  of  the  bay.  The  mist 
was  thick  around  her,  but  she  knew  that 
above  it  hung  the  sleepless  stars,  and  the 
fancy  came  over  her  that  perhaps  the  whole 
vast  interval,  from  ocean  up  to  sky,  might  be 
densely  filled  with  the  disembodied  souls  of 
her  departed  human  kindred,  waiting  to  see 
how  she  would  endure  that  path  of  grief  in 
which  their  steps  had  gone  before.  "  It  may 
be  from  this  influence,"  she  vaguely  mused 
within  herself, "  that  the  ocean  derives  its  end 
less  song  of  sorrow.  Perhaps  we  shall  know 
its  meaning  when  we  understand  that  of  the 
stars,  and  of  our  own  sad  lives." 

She  rose  a°:ain  and  went  to  the  bedside.     It 


Malbone.  193 

all  seemed  like  a  dream,  and  she  was  able  to  look 
at  Emilia's  existence  and  at  her  own  and  at  all 
else,  as  if  it  were  a  great  way  off;  as  we  watch 
the  stars  and  know  that  no  speculations  of  ours 
can  reach  those  who  there  live  or  die  untouched. 
Here  beside  her  lay  one  who  was  dead,  yet 
living,  in  her  temporary  trance,  and  to  what 
would  she  wake,  when  it  should  end  ?  This 
young  creature  had  been  sent  into  the 
world  so  fresh,  so  beautiful,  so  richly  gifted  ; 
everything  about  her  physical  organization 
was  so  delicate  and  lovely ;  she  had  seemed 
like  heliotrope,  like  a  tube-rose  in  her  purity 
and  her  passion  (who  was  it  said,  "  No  heart 
is  pure  that  is  not  passionate "  ?)  ;  and  here 
was  the  end  !  Nothing  external  could  have 
placed  her  where  she  was,  no  violence,  no 
outrage,  no  evil  of  another's  doing,  could 
have  reached  her  real  life  without  her  own 
consent  ;  and  now  what  kind  of  existence, 
what  career,  what  possibility  of  happiness  re 
mained  ?  Why  could  not  God  in  his  mercy 
take  her,  and  give  her  to  his  holiest  angels 
for  schooling,  ere  it  was  yet  too  late  ? 

Hope  went  and  sat   by  the    window  once 
more.     Her  thoughts  still  clung  heavily  around 
one  thought,  as  the  white  fog  clung  round  the 
9  M 


194  Malbone. 

house.  Where  should  she  see  any  light?  What 
opening  for  extrication,  unless,  indeed,  Emilia 
should  die  ?  There  could  be  no  harm  in  that 
thought,  for  she  knew  it  was  not  to  be,  and 
that  the  swoon  would  not  last  much  longer. 
Who  could  devise  anything  ?  No  one.  There 
was  nothing.  Almost  always  in  perplexities 
there  is  some  thread  by  resolutely  holding  to 
which  one  escapes  at  last.  Here  there  was 
none.  There  could  probably  be  no  conceal 
ment,  certainly  no  explanation.  In  a  few  days 
John  Lambert  would  return,  and  then  the 
storm  must  break.  He  was  probably  a  stern, 
jealous  man,  whose  very  dulness,  once  aroused, 
would  be  more  formidable  than  if  he  had 
possessed  keener  perceptions. 

Still  her  thoughts  did  not  dwell  on  Philip. 
He  was  simply  a  part  of  that  dull  mass  of  pain 
that  beset  her  and  made  her  feel,  as  she  had 
felt  when  drowning,  that  her  heart  had  left  her 
breast  and  nothing  but  will  remained.  She 
felt  now,  as  then,  the  capacity  to  act  with 
more  than  her  accustomed  resolution,  though 
all  that  was  within  her  seemed  boiling  up  into 
her  brain.  As  for  Philip,  all  seemed  a  mere 
negation  ;  there  was  a  vacuum  where  his  place 
had  been.  At  most  the  thought  of  him  came 


Malbone.  195 

to  her  as  some  strange,  vague  thrill  of  added 
torture,  penetrating  her  soul  and  then  pass 
ing  ;  just  as  ever  and  anon  there  came  the 
sound  of  the  fog-whistle  on  Bren ton's  Reef, 
miles  away,  piercing  the  dull  air  with  its  shrill 
and  desolate  wail,  then  dying  into  silence. 

What  a  hopeless  cloud  lay  upon  them  all 
forever,  —  upon  Kate,  upon  Harry,  upon  their 
whole  house  !  Then  there  was  John  Lam 
bert  ;  how  could  they  keep  it  from  him  ?  how 
could  they  tell  him  ?  Who  could  predict 
what  he  would  say  ?  WTould  he  take  the 
worst  and  coarsest  view  of  his  young  wife's 
mad  action  or  the  mildest  ?  Would  he  be 
strong  or  weak  ;  and  what  would  be  weak 
ness,  and  what  strength,  in  a  position  so 
strange  ?  Would  he  put  Emilia  from  him, 
send  her  out  in  the  world  desolate,  her  soul 
stained  but  by  one  wrong  passion,  yet  with 
her  reputation  blighted  as  if  there  were  no 
good  in  her  ?  Could  he  be  asked  to  shield 
and  protect  her,  or  what  would  become  of  her? 
She  was  legally  a  wife,  and  could  only  be 
separated  from  him  through  convicted  shame. 

Then,  if  separated,  she  could  only  marry 
Philip.  Hope  nerved  herself  to  think  of  that, 
and  it  cost  less  effort  than  she  expected. 


1 96  Malbone. 

There  seemed  a  numbness  on  that  side,  in 
stead  of  pain.  But  granting  that  he  loved 
Emilia  ever  so  deeply,  was  he  a  man  to  sur 
render  his  life  and  his  ease  and  his  fair  name, 
in  a  hopeless  effort  to  remove  the  ban  that  the 
world  would  place  on  her.  Hope  knew  he 
would  not ;  knew  that  even  the  simple-hearted 
and  straightforward  Harry  would  be  far  more 
capable  of  such  heroism  than  the  sentimental 
Malbone.  Here  the  pang  suddenly  struck 
her  ;  she  was  not  so  numb,  after  all ! 

As  the  leaves  beside  the  window  drooped 
motionless  in  the  dank  air,  so  her  mind 
drooped  into  a  settled  depression.  She  pitied 
herself,  —  that  lowest  ebb  of  melancholy  self- 
consciousness.  She  went  back  to  Emilia,  and, 
seating  herself,  studied  every  line  of  the  girl's 
face,  the  soft  texture  of  her  hair,  the  vein  ing  of 
her  eyelids.  They  were  so  lovely,  she  felt  a 
sort  of  physical  impulse  to  kiss  them,  as  if 
they  belonged  to  some  utter  stranger,  whom 
she  might  be  nursing  in  a  hospital.  Emilia 
looked  as  innocent  as  when  Hope  had  tended 
her  in  the  cradle.  What  is  there,  Hope 
thought,  in  sleep,  in  trance,  and  in  death,  that 
removes  all  harsh  or  disturbing  impressions, 
arid  leaves  only  the  most  delicate  and  purest 


Malbone.  197 

traits  ?  Does  the  mind  wander,  and  does 
an  angel  keep  its  place  ?  Or  is  there  really 
no  sin  but  in  thought,  and  are  our  sleeping 
thoughts  incapable  of  sin  ?  Perhaps  even 
when  we  dream  of  doing  wrong,  the  dream 
comes  in  a  shape  so  lovely  and  misleading 
that  we  never  recognize  it  for  evil,  and  it 
makes  no  stain.  Are  our  lives  ever  so  pure  as 
our  dreams  ? 

This  thought  somehow  smote  across  her 
conscience,  always  so  strong,  and  stirred  it 
into  a  kind  of  spasm  of  introspection.  "  How 
selfish  have  I,  too,  been  !  "  she  thought.  "  I 
saw  only  what  I  wished  to  see,  did  only  what 
I  preferred.  Loving  Philip  "  (for  the  sudden 
self-reproach  left  her  free  to  think  of  him),  "  I 
could  not  see  that  I  was  separating  him  from 
one  whom  he  might  perhaps  have  truly  loved. 
If  he  made  me  blind,  may  he  not  easily  have 
bewildered  her,  and  have  been  himself  bewil 
dered  ?  How  I  tried  to  force  myself  upon 
him,  too  !  Ungenerous,  unwomanly  !  What 
am  I,  that  I  should  judge  another  ?" 

She  threw  herself  on  her  knees  at  the  bed 
side. 

Still  Emilia  slept,  but  now  she  stirred  her 
head  in  the  slightest  possible  way,  so  that  a 


1 98  Malbone. 

single  tress  of  silken  hair  slipped  from  its 
companions,  and  lay  across  her  face.  It  was 
a  faint  sign  that  the  trance  was  waning  ;  the 
slight  pressure  disturbed  her  nerves,  and  her 
lips  trembled  once  or  twice,  as  if  to  relieve 
themselves  of  the  soft  annoyance.  Hope 
watched  her  in  a  va^ue,  distant  way,  took 
note  of  the  minutest  motion,  yet  as  if  some 
vast  weight  hung  upon  her  own  limbs  and 
made  all  interference  impossible.  Still  there 
was  a  fascination  of  sympathy  in  dwelling  on 
that  atom  of  discomfort,  that  tiny  suffering,- 
which  she  alone  could  remove.  The  very 
vastness  of  this  tragedy  that  hung  about  the 
house  made  it  an  inexpressible  relief  to  her  to 
turn  and  concentrate  her  thoughts  for  a  mo 
ment  on  this  slight  distress,  so  easily  ended. 

Strange,  by  what  slender  threads  our  lives 
are  knitted  to  each  other!  Here  was  one 
who  had  taken  Hope's  whole  existence  in 
her  hands,  crushed  it,  and  thrown  it  away. 
Hope  had  soberly  said  to  herself,  just  before, 
that  death  would  be  better  than  life  for  her 
young  sister.  Yet  now  it  moved  her  beyond 
endurance  to  see  that  fair  form  troubled,  even 
while  unconscious,  by  a  feather's  weight  of 
pain  ;  and  all  the  lifelong  habit  of  tenderness 
resumed  in  a  moment  its  sway. 


Malbone.  199 

She  approached  her  fingers  to  the  offend 
ing  tress,  very  slowly,  half  withholding  them 
at  the  very  last,  as  if  the  touch  would  burn  her. 
She  was  almost  surprised  that  it  did  not.  She 
looked  to  see  if  it  did  not  hurt  Emilia.  But  it 
now  seemed  as  if  the  slumbering  girl  enjoyed 
the  caressing  contact  of  the  smooth  fingers, 
and  turned  her  head,  almost  imperceptibly,  to 
meet  them.  This  was  more  than  Hope  could 
bear.  It  was  as  if  that  slight  motion  were  a 
puncture  to  relieve  her  overburdened  heart  ; 
a  thousand  thoughts  swept  over  her,  — of  their 
father,  of  her  sister's  childhood,  of  her  years 
of  absent  expectation  ;  she  thought  how  young 
the  girl  was,  how  fascinating,  how  passionate, 
how  tempted  ;  all  this  swept  across  her  in  a 
great  wave  of  nervous  reaction,  and  when 
Emilia  returned  to  consciousness,  she  was  ly 
ing  in  her  sister's  arms,  her  face  bathed  in 
Hope's  tears. 


2OO  Malbone. 

XIX. 

DE    PROFUNDIS. 

THIS  was  the  history  of  Emilia's  con 
cealed  visits  to  Malbone. 

One  week  after  her  marriage,  in  a  crisis  of 
agony,  Emilia  took  up  her  pen,  clipped  it  in 
fire,  and  wrote  thus  to  him  :  — 

"  Philip  Malbone,  why  did  nobody  ever  tell 
me  what  marriage  is  where  there  is  no  love  ? 
This  man  who  calls  himself  my  husband  is  no 
worse,  I  suppose,  than  other  men.  It  is  only 
for  being  what  is  called  by  that  name  that  I 
abhor  him.  Good  God  !  what  am  I  to  do  ?  It 
was  not  for  money  that  I  married  him,  —  that 
you  know  very  well ;  I  cared  no  more  for  his 
money  than  for  himself.  I  thought  it  was  the 
only  way  to  save  Hope.  She  has  been  very 
good  to  me,  and  perhaps  I  should  love  her,  if 
I  could  love  anybody.  Now  I  have  done  what 
will  only  make  more  misery,  for  I  cannot  bear 
it.  Philip,  I  am  alone  in  this  wide  world,  ex 
cept  for  you.  Tell  me  what  to  do.  I  will 
haunt  you  till  you  die,  unless  you  tell  me. 
Answer  this,  or  I  will  write  again." 


Malbone.  20 1 

Terrified  by  this  letter,  absolutely  powerless 
to  guide  the  life  with  which  he  had  so  desper 
ately  entangled  himself,  Philip  let  one  day  pass 
without  answering,  and  that  evening  he  found 
Emilia  at  his  door,  she  having  glided  unnoticed 
up  the  main  stairway.  She  was  so  excited,  it 
was  equally  dangerous  to  send  her  away  or  to 
admit  her,  and  he  drew  her  in,  darkening  the 
windows  and  locking  the  door.  On  the  whole, 
it  was  not  so  bad  as  he  expected  ;  at  least, 
there  was  less  violence  and  more  despair.  She 
covered  her  face  with  her  hands,  and  writhed 
in  anguish,  when  she  said  that  she  had  utterly 
degraded  herself  by  this  loveless  marriage. 
She  scarcely  mentioned  her  husband.  She 
made  no  complaint  of  him,  and  even  spoke  of 
him  as  generous.  It  seemed  as  if  this  made 
it  worse,  and  as  if  she  would  be  happier  if  she 
could  expend  herself  in  hating  him.  She 
spoke  of  him  rather  as  a  mere  witness  to  some 
shame  for  which  she  herself  was  responsible  ; 
bearing  him  no  malice,  but  tortured  by  the 
thought  that  he  should  exist. 

Then  she  turned  on  Malbone.     "  Philip,  why 

did  you  ever  interfere  with  my  life  ?     I  should 

have  been  very  happy  with  Antoine  if  you 

had  let  me  marry  him,  for  I  never  should  have 

9* 


2Q2  Malbone. 

known  what  it  was  to  love  you.  Oh !  I  wish 
he  were  here  now,  even  he,  —  any  one  who 
loved  me  truly,  and  whom  I  could  love  only  a 
little.  I  would  go  away  with  such  a  person 
anywhere,  and  never  trouble  you  and  Hope 
any  more.  What  shall  I  do?  Philip,  you 
mio-ht  tell  m2  what  to  do.  Once  you  told  me 

O 

always  fo  come  to  you." 

"  What  can  you  do  ?  "  he  asked  gloomily,  in 
return. 

"  I  cannot  imagine,"  she  said,  with  a  deso 
late  look,  more  pitiable  than  passion,  on  her 
young  face.  "  I  wish  to  save  Hope,  and  to 
save  my — to  save  Mr.  Lambert.  Philip,  you 
do  not  love  me.  I  do  not  call  it  love.  There 
is  no  passion  in  your  veins ;  it  is  only  a  sort 
of  sympathetic  selfishness.  Hope  is  infinitely 
better  than  you  are,  and  I  believe  she  is  more 
capable  of  loving.  I  began  by  hating  her, 
but  if  she  loves  you  as  I  think  she  does,  she 
has  treated  me  more  generously  than  ever  one 
woman  treated  another.  For  she  could  not 
look  at  me  and  not  know  that  I  loved  you.  I 
did  love  you.  O  Philip,  tell  me  what  to  do  !" 

Such  beauty  in  anguish,  the  thrill  of  the 
possession  of  such  love,  the  possibility  of 
soothing  by  tenderness  the  wild  mood  which 


Malbone.  203 

he  could  not  meet  by  counsel,  — it  would  have 
taken  a  stronger  or  less  sympathetic  nature 
than  Malbone's  to  endure  all  this.  It  swept 
him  away  ;  this  revival  of  passion  was  irre 
sistible.  When  her  pent-up  feeling  was  once 
uttered,  she  turned  to  his  love  as  a  fancied 
salvation.  It  was  a  terrible  remedy.  She  had 
never  looked  more  beautiful,  and  yet  she 
seemed  to  have  grown  old  at  once  ;  her  very 
caresses  appeared  to  burn.  She  lingered  and 
lingered,  and  still  he  kept  her  there  ;  and 
when  it  was  no  longer  possible  for  her  to  go 
without  disturbing  the  house,  he  led  her  to  a 
secret  spiral  stairway,  which  weyit  from  attic 
to  cellar  of  that  stately  old  mansion,  aid 
which  opened  by  one  or  more  doors  on  each 
landing,  as  his  keen  eye  had  found  out.  De 
scending  this,  he  went  forth  with  her  into  the 
dark  and  silent  night.  The  mist  hung  around 
the  house  :  the  wet  leaves  fluttered  and  fell 
upon  their  cfceeks  ;  the  water  lapped  desolate 
ly  against  the  pier.  Philip  found  a  carriage 
and  sent  her  back  to  Mrs.  Meredith's,  where 
she  was  staying  during  the  brief  absence  of 
John  Lambert. 

These  concealed  meetings,  once  begun,  be 
came    an    absorbing   excitement.      She   came 


2O4  Malbone. 

several  times,  staying  half  an  hour,  an  hour, 
two  hours.  They  were  together  long  enough 
for  suffering,  never  long  enough  for  soothing. 
It  was  a  poor  substitute  for  happiness.  Each 
time  she  came,  Malbone  wished  that  she  might 
never  go  or  never  return.  His  warier  nature 
was  feverish  with  solicitude  and  with  self-re 
proach  ;  he  liked  the  excitement  of  slight  risks, 
but  this  was  far  too  intense,  the  vibrations  too 
extreme.  She,  on  the  other  hand,  rode  trium 
phant  over  waves  of  passion  which  cowed  him. 
He  dared  not  exclude  her ;  he  dared  not  con 
tinue  to  admit  her  ;  he  dared  not  free  himself; 
he  could  not  be  happy.  The  privacy  of  the 
concealed  stairway  saved  them  from  outward 
dangers,  but  not  from  inward  fears.  Their  in 
terviews  were  first  blissful,  then  anxious,  then 
sad,  then  stormy.  It  was  at  the  end  of  such 
a  storm  that  Emilia  had  passed  into  one  of 
those  deathly  calms  which  belonged  to  her 
physical  temperament ;  and  it  was  under  these 
circumstances  that  Hope  had  followed  Philip 
to  the  door. 


Malbone.  205 

XX. 

AUNT  JANE   TO   THE   RESCUE. 

THE  thing  that  saves  us  from  insanity 
during  great  grief  is  that  there  is  usual 
ly  something  to  do,  and  the  mind  composes 
itself  to  the  mechanical  task  of  adjusting  the 
details.  Hope  dared  not  look  forward  an  inch 
into  the  future  ;  that  way  madness  lay.  For 
tunately,  it  was  plain  what  must  come  first,  — 
to  keep  the  whole  thing  within  their  own  walls, 
and  therefore  to  make  some  explanation  to 
Mrs.  Meredith,  whose  servants  had  doubtless 
been  kept  up  all  night  awaiting  Emilia.  Pro 
foundly  perplexed  what  to  say  or  not  to  say  to 
her,  Hope  longed  with  her  whole  soul  for  an 
adviser.  Harry  and  Kate  were  both  away,  and 
besides,  she  shrank  from  darkening  their  young 
lives  as  hers  had  been  darkened.  She  resolved 
to  seek  counsel  in  the  one  person  who  most 
thoroughly  distrusted  Emilia,  —  Aunt  Jane. 

This  lady  was  in  a  particularly  happy  mood 
that  day.  Emilia,  who  did  all  kinds  of  fine 
needle-work  exquisitely,  had  just  embroidered 


206  Malboue. 

for  Aunt  Jane  some  pillow-cases.  The  origi 
nal  suggestion  came  from  Hope,  but  it  never 
cost  Emilia  anything  to  keep  a  secret,  and  she 
had  presented  the  gift  very  sweetly,  as  if  it 
were  a  thought  of  her  own.  Aunt  Jane,  who 
with  all  her  penetration  as  to  facts  was  often 
very  guileless  as  to  motives,  was  thoroughly 
touched  by  the  humility  and  the  embroidery. 

"  All  last  night,"  she  said,  "  I  kept  waking 
up,  and  thinking  about  Christian  charity  and 
my  pillow-cases." 

It  was,  therefore,  a  very  favorable  day  for 
Hope's  consultation,  though  it  was  nearly 
noon  before  her  aunt  was  visible,  perhaps  be 
cause  it  took  so  long  to  make  up  her  bed  with 
the  new  adornments. 

Hope  said  frankly  to  Aunt  Jane  that  there 
were  some  circumstances  about  which  she 
should  rather  not  be  questioned,  but  that 
Emilia  had  come  there  the  previous  night 
from  the  ball,  had  been  seized  with  one  of  her 
peculiar  attacks,  and  had  stayed  all  night. 
Aunt  Jane  kept  her  eyes  steadily  fixed  on 
Hope's  sad  face,  and,  when  the  tale  was  ended, 
drew  her  down  and  kissed  her  lips. 

"  Now  tell  me,  dear,"  she  said  ;  "  what  comes 
first?" 


Malbone.  207 

"The  first  thing  is,"  said  Hope,  "to  have 
Emilia's  absence  explained  to  Mrs.  Meredith 
in  some  such  way  that  she  will  think  no  more 
of  it,  and  not  talk  about  it." 

"  Certainly,"  said  Aunt  Jane.  "  There  is 
but  one  way  to  do  that.  I  will  call  on  her 
myself." 

"  You,  auntie  ? "  said  Hope. 

"  Yes,  I,"  said  her  aunt.  "  I  have  owed  her 
a  call  for  five  years.  It  is  the  only  thing 
that  will  excite  her  so  much  as  to  put  all  else 
out  of  her  head." 

"  O  auntie  ! "  said  Hope,  greatly  relieved, 
"if  you  only  would!  But  ought  you  really  to 
go  out  ?  It  is  almost  raining." 

"  I  shall  go,"  said  Aunt  Jane,  decisively,  "  if 
it  rains  little  boys  !" 

"  But  will  not  Mrs.  Meredith  wonder  —  ? " 
began  Hope. 

"  That  is  one  advantage,"  interrupted  her 
aunt,  "  of  being  an  absurd  old  woman.  No 
body  ever  wonders  at  anything  I  do,  or  else  it 
is  that  they  never  sjop  wondering." 

She  sent  Ruth  erelong  to  order  the  horses. 
Hope  collected  her  various  wrappers,  and 
Ruth,  returning,  got  her  mistress  into  a  state 
of  preparation. 


208  Malbone. 

"  If  I  might  say  one  thing  more,"  Hope 
whispered. 

"  Certainly,"  said  her  aunt.  "  Ruth,  go  to 
my  chamber,  and  get  me  a  pin." 

"  What  kind  of  a  pin,  ma'am  ? "  asked  that 
meek  handmaiden,  from  the  doorway. 

"  What  a  question  !  "  said  her  indignant 
mistress.  "  Any  kind.  The  common  pin  of 
North  America.  Now,  Hope  ? "  as  the  door 
closed. 

"  I  think  it  better,  auntie,"  said  Hope,  "  that 
Philip  should  not  stay  here  longer  at  present. 
You  can  truly  say  that  the  house  is  full, 
and-" 

"  I  have  just  had  a  note  from  him,"  said 
Aunt  Jane,  severely.  "  He  has  gone  to  lodge 
at  the  hotel.  What  next  ?  ' 

"  Aunt  Jane,"  said  Hope,  looking  her  full 
in  the  face,  "  I  have  not  the  slightest  idea 
what  to  do  next." 

("  The  next  thing  for  me,"  thought  her  aunt, 
"  is  to  have  a  little  plain  speech  with  that  mis 
guided  child  upstairs.") 

"  I  can  see  no  way  out,"  pursued  Hope. 

"  Darling  !"  said  Aunt  Jane,  with  a  voice 
full  of  womanly  sweetness,  "  there  is  always  a 
way  out,  or  else  the  world  would  have  stopped 


Malbone,  209 

long  ago.  Perhaps  it  would  have  been  better 
if  it  had  stopped,  but  you  see  it  has  not.  All 
we  can  do  is,  to  live  on  and  try  our  best." 

She  bade  Hope  leave  Emilia  to  her,  and 
furthermore  stipulated  that  Hope  should  go  to 
her  pupils  as  usual,  that  afternoon,  as  it  was 
their  last  lesson.  The  young  girl  shrank  from 
the  effort,  but  the  elder  lady  was  inflexible. 
She  had  her  own  purpose  in  it.  Hope  once 
out  of  the  way,  Aunt  Jane  could  deal  with 
Emilia. 

No  human  being,  when  met  face  to  face 
with  Aunt  Jane,  had  ever  failed  to  yield  up  to 
her  the  whole  truth  she  sought.  Emilia  was 
on  that  day  no  exception.  She  was  prostrate, 
languid,  humble,  denied  nothing,  was  ready  to 
concede  every  point  but  one.  Never,  while 
she  lived,  would  she  dwell  beneath  John  Lam 
bert's  roof  again.  She  had  left  it  impulsively, 
she  admitted,  scarce  knowing  what  she  did. 
But  she  would  never  return  there  to  live.  She 
would  go  once  more  and  see  that  all  was  in 
order  for  Mr.  Lambert,  both  in  the  house 
and  on  board  the  yacht,  where  they  were  to 
have  taken  up  their  abode  for  a  time.  There 
were  new  servants  in  the  house,  a  new  captain 
on  the  yacht ;  she  would  trust  Mr.  Lambert's 


2io  Mai  bone. 

comfort  to  none  of  them  ;  she  would  do  her 
full  duty.  Duty  !  the  more  utterly  she  felt 
herself  to  be  gliding  away  from  him  forever, 
the  more  pains  she  was  ready  to  lavish  in  do 
ing  these  nothings  well.  About  every  insig 
nificant  article  he  owned  she  seemed  to  feel 
the  most  scrupulous  and  wife-like  responsibili 
ty  ;  while  she  yet  knew  that  all  she  had  was  to 
him  nothing,  compared  with  the  possession  of 
herself;  and  it  was  the  thought  of  this  last 
ownership  that  drove  her  to  despair. 

Sweet  and  plaintive  as  the  child's  face  was, 
it  had  a  glimmer  of  wildness  and  a  hunted 
look,  that  baffled  Aunt  Jane  a  little,  and  com 
pelled  her  to  temporize.  She  consented  that 
Emilia  should  go  to  her  own  house,  on  condi 
tion  that  she  would  not  see  Philip,  —  which 
was  readily  and  even  eagerly  promised,  — 
and  that  Hope  should  spend  that  night  with 
Emilia,  which  proposal  was  ardently  accepted. 

It  occurred  to  Aunt  Jane  that  nothing  bet 
ter  could  happen  than  for  John  Lambert,  on 
returning,  to  find  his  wife  at  home  ;  and  to 
secure  this  result,  if  possible,  she  telegraphed 
to  him  to  come  at  once. 

Meantime  Hope  gave  her  inevitable  music- 
lesson,  so  absorbed  in  her  own  thoughts  that  it 


Malbone.  2  \  i 

was  all  as  mechanical  as  the  metronome.  As 
she  came  out  upon  the  Avenue  for  the  walk 
home,  she  saw  a  group  of  people  from  a  gajc- 
dener's  house,  who  had  collected  beside  a 
muddy  crossing,  where  a  team  of  cart-horses 
had  refused  to  stir.  Presently  they  sprang 
forward  with  a  great  jerk,  and  a  little  Irish 
child  was  thrown  beneath  the  wheel.  Hope 
sprang  forward  to  grasp  the  child,  and  the 
wheel  struck  her  also  ;  but  she  escaped  with 
a  dress  torn  and  smeared,  while  the  cart 
passed  over  the  little  girl's  arm,  breaking  it 
in  two  places.  She  screamed  and  then  grew 
faint,  as  Hope  lifted  her.  The  mother  re 
ceived  the  burden  with  a  wail  of  anguish  ; 
the  other  Irishwomen  pressed  around  her 
with  the  dense  and  suffocating  sympathy  of 
their  nation.  Hope  bade  one  and  another 
run  for  a  physician,  but  nobody  stirred. 
There  was  no  surgical  aid  within  a  mile  or 
more.  Hope  looked  round  in  despair,  then 
glanced  at  her  own  disordered  garments. 

"  As  sure  as  you  live  ! "  shouted  a  well- 
known  voice  from  a  carriage  which  had 
stopped  behind  them.  "  If  that  is  n't  Hope 
what's-her-name,  wish  I  may  never  !  Here 's 
a  lark  !  Let  me  come  there  ! "  And  the 
speaker  pushed  through  the  crowd. 


2 1 2  Malbone. 

"  Miss  Ingleside,"  said  Hope,  decisively, 
"  this  child's  arm  is  broken.  There  is  nobody 
to  go  for  a  physician.  Except  for  the  condition 
I  am  in,  I  would  ask  you  to  take  me  there  at 
once  in  your  carriage  ;  but  as  it  is  —  " 

"  As  it  is,  I  must  ask  you,  hey  ? "  said 
Blanche,  finishing  the  sentence.  "  Of  course. 
No  mistake.  Sans  dire.  Jones,  junior,  this 
lady  will  join  us.  Don't  look  so  scared,  man. 
Are  you  anxious  about  your  cushions  or  your 
reputation  ? " 

The  youth  simpered  and  disclaimed. 

"  Jump  in,  then,  Miss  Maxwell.  Never 
mind  the  expense.  It's  only  the  family  car 
riage  ;  —  surname  and  arms  of  Jones.  Lucky 
there  are  no  parents  to  the  fore.  Put  my 
shawl  over  you,  so." 

"O  Blanche!"  said  Hope,  "what  injus 
tice—" 

"I  Ve  done  myself?"  said  the  volatile  dam 
sel.  "  Not  a  doubt  of  it.  That 's  my  style, 
you  know.  But  I  have  some  sense  ;  I  know 
who  's  who.  Now,  Jones,  junior,  make  your 
man  handle  the  ribbons.  I  Ve  always  had  a 
grudge  against  that  ordinance  about  fast  driv 
ing,  and  now  's  our  chance." 

And  the  sacred  "  ordinance,"  with  all  other 


Malbone.  2  \  3 

proprieties,  was  left  in  ruins  that  day.  They 
tore  along  the  Avenue  with  unexplained  and 
most  inexplicable  speed,  Hope  being  concealed 
by  riding  backward,  and  by  a  large  shawl,  and 
Blanche  and  her  admirer  receiving  the  full  in 
dignation  of  every  chaste  and  venerable  eye. 
Those  who  had  tolerated  all  this  girl's  previous 
improprieties  were  obliged  to  admit  that  the 
line  must  be  drawn  somewhere.  She  at  once 
lost  several  good  invitations  and  a  matrimo 
nial  offer,  since  Jones,  junior,  was  swept  away 
by  his  parents  to  be  wedded  without  delay  to 
a  consumptive  heiress  who  had  long  pined  for 
his  whiskers  ;  and  Count  Posen,  in  his  Sou 
venirs,  was  severer  on  Blanche's  one  good 
deed  than  on  the  worst  of  her  follies. 

A  few  years  after,  when  Blanche,  then  the 
fearless  wife  of  a  regular-army  officer,  was 
helping  Hope  in  the  hospitals  at  Norfolk,  she 
would  stop  to  shout  with  delight  over  the  remi 
niscence  of  that  stately  Jones  equipage  in  mad 
career,  amid  the  barking  of  dogs  and  the 
groaning  of  dowagers.  "  After  all,  Hope," 
she  would  say,  "  the  fastest  thing  I  ever  did 
was  under  your  orders." 


214  Malbone. 

XXI. 

A  STORM. 

'T^HE  members  of  the  household  were  all 
J-  at  the  window  about  noon,  next  day, 
watching  the  rise  of  a  storm.  A  murky  wing 
of  cloud,  shaped  like  a  hawk's,  hung  over  the 
low  western  hills  across  the  bay.  Then  the 
hawk  became  an  eagle,  and  the  eagle  a  gigan 
tic  phantom,  that  hovered  over  half  the  visible 
sky.  Beneath  it,  a  little  scud  of  vapor,  moved 
by  some  cross-current  of  air,  raced  rapidly 
against  the  wind,  just  above  the  horizon,  like 
smoke  from  a  battle-field. 

As  the  cloud  ascended,  the  water  grew  rap 
idly  blacker,  and  in  half  an  hour  broke  into 
jets  of  white  foam,  all  over  its  surface,  with 
an  angry  look.  Meantime  a  white  film  of  fog 
spread  down  the  bay  from  the  northward. 
The  wind  hauled  from  southwest  to  northwest, 
so  suddenly  and  strongly  that  all  the  anchored 
boats  seemed  to  have  swung  round  instantane 
ously,  without  visible  process.  The  instant  the 
wind  shifted,  the  rain  broke  forth,  filling  the 


Malbone.  2 1 5 

air  in  a  moment  with  its  volume,  and  cutting 
so  sharply  that  it  seemed  like  hail,  though  no 
hailstones  reached  the  ground.  At  the  same 
time  there  rose  upon  the  water  a  dense  white 
film,  which  seemed  to  grow  together  from  a 
hundred  different  directions,  and  was  made 
partly  of  rain,  and  partly  of  the  blown  edges 
of  the  spray.  There  was  but  a  glimpse  of 
this ;  for  in  a  few  moments  it  was  impossible 
to  see  two  rods ;  but  when  the  first  gust  was 
over,  the  water  showed  itself  again,  the  jets  of 
spray  all  beaten  down,  and  regular  waves,  of 
dull  lead-color,  breaking  higher  on  the  shore. 
All  the  depth  of  blackness  had  left  the  sky, 
and  there  remained  only  an  obscure  and 
ominous  gray,  through  which  the  lightning 
flashed  white,  not  red.  Boats  came  driving 
in  from  the  mouth  of  the  bay  with  a  rag  of 
sail  up  ;  the  men  got  them  moored  with  diffi 
culty,  and  when  they  sculled  ashore  in  the 
skiffs,  a  dozen  comrades  stood  ready  to  grasp 
and  haul  them  in.  Others  launched  skiffs  in 
sheltered  places,  and  pulled  out  bareheaded  to 
bail  out  their  fishing-boats  and  keep  them 
from  swamping  at  their  moorings. 

The  shore  was  thronged  with  men  in  oilskin 
clothes  and  by  women  with  shawls  over  their 


216  Malbone. 

heads.  Aunt  Jane,  who  always  felt  responsi 
ble  for  whatever  went  on  in  the  elements,  sat 
in-doors  with  one  lid  closed,  wincing  at  every 
flash,  and  watching  the  universe  with  the  air 
of  a  coachman  guiding  six  wild  horses. 

Just  after  the  storm  had  passed  its  height, 
two  veritable  wild  horses  were  reined  up  at 
the  door,  and  Philip  burst  in,  his  usual  self- 
composure  gone. 

"  Emilia  is  out  sailing ! "  he  exclaimed, 
—  "alone  with  Lambert's  boatman,  in  this 
gale.  They  say  she  was  bound  for  Narra- 
gansett." 

"  Impossible  ! "  cried  Hope,  turning  pale. 
"  I  left  her  not  three  hours  ago."  Then  she 
remembered  that  Emilia  had  spoken  of  going 
on  board  the  yacht,  to  superintend  some  ar 
rangements,  but  had  said  no  more  about  it, 
when  she  opposed  it. 

"  Harry !  "  said  Aunt  Jane,  quickly,  from 
her  chair  by  the  window,  "  see  that  fisherman. 
He  has  just  come  ashore  and  is  telling  some 
thing.  Ask  him." 

The  fisherman  had  indeed  seen  Lambert's 
boat,  which  was  well  known.  Something 
seemed  to  be  the  matter  with  the  sail,  but  be 
fore  the  storm  struck  her,  it  had  been  hauled 


Malbone.  2 1 7 

down.  They  must  have  taken  in  water  enough, 
as  it  was.  He  had  himself  been  obliged  to 
bail  out  three  times,  running  in  from  the  reef. 

"  Was  there  any  landing  which  they  could 
reach  ?  "  Harry  asked. 

There  was  none,  —  but  the  light-ship  lay 
right  in  their  track,  and  if  they  had  good  luck, 
they  might  get  aboard  of  her. 

"  .The  boatman  ?  "  said  Philip,  anxiously,  — 
"  Mr.  Lambert's  boatman  ;  is  he  a  good  sail 
or  ?  " 

"  Don't  know,"  was  the  reply.  "  Stranger 
here.  Dutchman,  Frenchman,  Portegee,  or 
some  kind  of  a  foreigner." 

"  Seems  to  understand  himself  in  a  boat," 
said  another. 

"  Mr.  Malbone  knows  him,"  said  a  third. 
"  The  same  that  dove  with  the  young  woman 
under  the  steamboat  paddles." 

"  Good  grit,"  said  the  first. 

"  That 's  so,"  was  the  answer.  "  But  grit 
don't  teach  a  man  the  channel." 

All  agreed  to  this  axiom  ;  but  as  there  was 
so  strong  a  probability  that  the  voyagers  had 
reached  the  light-ship,  there  seemed  less  cause 
for  fear. 

The  next  question  was,  whether  it  was  pos- 
IQ 


218  '  Malbone. 

sible  to  follow  them.  All  agreed  that  it  would 
be  foolish  for  any  boat  to  attempt  it,  till  the 
wind  had  blown  itself  out,  which  might  be 
within  half  an  hour.  After  that,  some  pre 
dicted  a  calm,  some  a  fog,  some  a  renewal  of 
the  storm ;  there  was  the  usual  variety  of 
opinions.  At  any  rate,  there  might  perhaps 
be  an  interval  during  which  they  could  go  out, 
if  the  gentlemen  did  not  mind  a  wet  jacket. 

Within  the  half-hour  came  indeed  an  inter 
val  of  calm,  and  a  light  shone  behind  the 
clouds  from  the  west.  It  faded  soon  into  a 
gray  fog,  with  puffs  of  wind  from  the  south 
west  again.  When  the  young  men  went  out 
with  the  boatmen,  the  water  had  grown  more 
quiet,  save  where  angry  little  gusts  ruffled  it. 
But  these  gusts  made  it  necessary  to  carry  a 
double  reef,  and  they  made  but  little  progress 
against  wind  and  tide. 

A  dark-gray  fog,  broken  by  frequent  wind 
flaws,  makes  the  ugliest  of  all  days  on  the 
water.  A  still,  pale  fog  is  soothing  ;  it  lulls 
nature  to  a  kind  of  repose.  But  a  windy  fog 
with  occasional  sunbeams  and  sudden  films  of 
metallic  blue  breaking  the  leaden  water,  — 
this  carries  an  impression  of  something  weird 
and  treacherous  in  the  universe,  and  suggests 
caution. 


Malbone.  '219 

As  the  boat  floated  on,  every  sight  and 
sound  appeared  strange.  The  music  from  the 
fort  came  sudden  and  startling  through  the 
vaporous  eddies.  A  tall  white  schooner  rose 
instantaneously  near  them,  like  a  light-house. 
They  could  see  the  steam  of  the  factory  float 
ing  low,  seeking  some  outlet  between  cloud 
and  water.  As  they  drifted  past  a  wharf,  the 
great  black  piles  of  coal  hung  high  and 
gloomy ;  then  a  stray  sunbeam  brought  out 
their  peacock  colors  ;  then  came  the  fog  again, 
driving  hurriedly  by,  as  if  impatient  to  go 
somewhere  and  enraged  at  the  obstacle.  It 
seemed  to  have  a  vast  inorganic  life  of  its 
own,  a  volition  and  a  whim.  It  drew  itself 
across  the  horizon  like  a  curtain  ;  then  ad 
vanced  in  trampling  armies  up  the  bay  ;  then 
marched  in  masses  northward  ;  then  suddenly 
grew  thin,  and  showed  great  spaces  of  sun 
light  ;  then  drifted  across  the  low  islands,  like 
long  tufts  of  wool ;  then  rolled  itself  away 
toward  the  horizon ;  then  closed  in  again, 
pitiless  and  gray. 

Suddenly  something  vast  towered  amid  the 
mist  above  them.  It  was  the  French  war-ship 
returned  to  her  anchorage  once  more,  and 
seeming  in  that  dim  atmosphere  to  be  some- 


22O  Malbone. 

thing  spectral  and  strange  that  had  taken 
form  out  of  the  elements.  The  muzzles  of 
great  guns  rose  tier  above  tier,  along  her  side  ; 
great  boats  hung  one  above  another,  on 
successive  pairs  of  davits,  at  her  stern.  So 
high  was  her  hull,  that  the  topmost  boat  and 
the  topmost  gun  appeared  to  be  suspended  in 
middle  air  ;  and  yet  this  was  but  the  begin 
ning  of  her  altitude.  Above  these  were  the 
heavy  masts,  seen  dimly  through  the  mist ; 
between  these  were  spread  eight  dark  lines  of 
sailors'  clothes,  which,  with  the  massive  yards 
above,  looked  like  part  of  some  ponderous 
framework  built  to  reach  the  sky.  This  pro 
longation  of  the  whole  dark  mass  toward  the 
heavens  had  a  portentous  look  to  those  who 
gazed  from  below  ;  and  when  the  denser  fog 
sometimes  furled  itself  away  from  the  topgal 
lant  masts,  hitherto  invisible,  and  showed 
them  rising  loftier  yet,  and  the  tricolor  at  the 
mizzen-mast-head  looking  down  as  if  from  the 
zenith,  then  they  all  seemed  to  appertain  to 
something  of  more  than  human  workmanship  ; 
a  hundred  wild  tales  of  phantom  vessels  came 
up  to  the  imagination,  and  it  was  as  if  that 
one  gigantic  structure  were  expanding  to  fill 
all  space  from  sky  to  sea 


Malbone.  221 

They  were  swept  past  it  ;  the  fog  closed 
in  ;  it  was  necessary  to  land  near  the  Fort, 
and  proceed  on  foot.  They  walked  across 
the  rough  peninsula,  while  the  mist  began  to 
disperse  again,  and  they  were  buoyant  with 
expectation.  As  they  toiled  onward,  the  fog 
suddenly  met  them  at  the  turn  of  a  lane 
where  it  had  awaited  them,  like  an  enemy. 
As  they  passed  into  those  gray  and  impalpable 
arms,  the  whole  world  changed  again. 

They  walked  toward  the  sound  of  the  sea. 
As  they  approached  it,  the  dull  hue  that  lay 
upon  it  resembled  that  of  the  leaden  sky. 
The  two  elements  could  hardly  be  distin 
guished  except  as  the  white  outlines  of  the 
successive  breakers  were  lifted  through  the 
fog.  The  lines  of  surf  appeared  constantly  to 
multiply  upon  the  beach,  and  yet,  on  counting 
them,  there  were  never  any  more.  Sometimes, 
in  the  distance,  masses  of  foam  rose  up  like  a 
wall  where  the  horizon  ought  to  be  ;  and,  as 
the  coming  waves  took  form  out  of  the  unseen, 
it  seemed  as  if  no  phantom  were  too  vast  or 
shapeless  to  come  rolling  in  upon  their  dusky 
shoulders. 

Presently  a  frail  gleam  of  something  like 
the  ghost  of  dead  sunshine  made  them  look 


222  Malbone. 

toward  the  west.  Above  the  dim  roofs  of 
Castle  Hill  mansion-house,  the  sinking  sun 
showed  luridly  through  two  rifts  of  cloud,  and 
then  the  swift  motion  of  the  nearer  vapor 
veiled  both  sun  and  cloud,  and  banished 
them  into  almost  equal  remoteness. 

Leaving  the  beach  on  their  right,  and  pass 
ing  the  high  rocks  of  the  Pirate's  Cave,  they 
presently  descended  to  the  water's  edge  once 
more.  The  cliffs  rose  to  a  distorted  height  in 
the  dimness  ;  sprays  of  withered  grass  nodded 
along  the  edge,  like  Ossian's  spectres.  Light 
seemed  to  be  vanishing  fron  the  universe, 
leaving  them  alone  with  the  sea.  And  when 
a  solitary  loon  uttered  his  wild  cry,  and  rising, 
sped  away  into  the. distance,  it  was  as  if  life 
were  following  light  into  an  equal  annihilation. 
That  sense  of  vague  terror,  with  which  the 
ocean  sometimes  controls  the  fancy,  began  to 
lay  its  grasp  on  them.  They  remembered  that 
Emilia,  in  speaking  once  of  her  intense  shrink 
ing  from  death,  had  said  that  the  sea  was  the 
only  thing  from  which  she  would  not  fear  to 
meet  it. 

Fog  exaggerates  both  for  eye  and  ear  ;  it  is 
always  a  sounding-board  for  the  billows  ;  and 
in  this  case,  as  often  happens,  the  roar  did  not 


M alb  one.  223 

appear  to  proceed  from  the  waves  themselves, 
but  from  some  source  in  the  unseen  horizon, 
as  if  the  spectators  were  shut  within  a  be 
leaguered  fortress,  and  this  thundering  noise 
came  from  an  impetuous  enemy  outside.  Ever 
and  anon  there  was  a  distinct  crash  of  heavier 
sound,  as  if  some  special  barricade  had  at 
length  been  beaten  in,  and  the  garrison  must 
look  to  their  inner  defences. 

The  tide  was  unusually  high,  and  scarcely 
receded  with  the  ebb,  though  the  surf  in 
creased  ;  the  waves  came  in  with  constant 
rush  and  wail,  and  with  an  ominous  rattle  of 
pebbles  on  the  little  beaches,  beneath  the 
powerful  suction  of  the  undertow  ;  and  there 
were  more  and  more  of  those  muffled  throbs 
along  the  shore  which  tell  of  coming  danger 
as  plainly  as  minute-guns.  With  these  came 
mingled  that  yet  more  inexplicable  humming 
which  one  hears  at  intervals  in  such  ti'mes, 
like  strains  of  music  caught  and  tangled  in 
the  currents  of  stormy  air,  —  strains  which 
were  perhaps  the  filmy  thread  on  which  tales 
of  sirens  and  mermaids  were  first  strung,  and 
in  which,  at  this  time,  they  would  fain  recog 
nize  the  voice  of  Emilia. 


224  Malbone. 

XXII. 
OUT   OF   THE   DEPTHS. 

AS  the  night  closed  in,  the  wind  rose 
steadily,  still  blowing  from  the  south 
west.  In  Brenton's  kitchen  they  found  a 
group  round  a  great  fire  of  driftwood  ;  some 
of  these  were  fishermen  who  had  with  dif 
ficulty  made  a  landing  on  the  beach,  and 
who  confirmed  the  accounts  already  given. 
The  boat  had  been  seen  sailing  for  the  Narra- 
gansett  shore,  and  when  the  squall  came,  the 
boatman  had  lowered  and  reefed  the  sail,  and 
stood  for  the  lightship.  They  must  be  on 
board  of  her,  if  anywhere. 

"  They  are  safe  there  ? "  asked  Philip,  ea 
gerly. 

"  Only  place  where  they  would  be  safe, 
then,"  said  the  spokesman. 

"  Unless  the  light-ship  parts,"  said  an  old 
fellow. 

"  Parts  ! "  said  the  other.  "  Sixty  fathom 
of  two-inch  chain,  and  old  Joe  talks  about 
parting." 


M alb  one.  225 

"  Foolish,  of  course,"  said  Philip  ;  "  but  it's 
a  dangerous  shore." 

"That's  so,"  was  the  answer.  "Never  saw 
so  many  lines  of  reef  show  outside,  neither." 

"  There's  an  old  saying  on  this  shore,"  said 
Joe :  — 

"  When  Price's  Neck  goes  to  Brenton's  Reef, 
Body  and  soul  will  come  to  grief. 
But  when  Brenton's  Reef  comes  to  Price's  Neck, 
Soul  and  body  are  both  a  wreck." 

"  What  does  it  mean  ?  "  asked  Harry.       , 

"  It*  only  means,"  said  somebody,  "  that 
when  you  see  it  white  all  the  way  out  from 
the  Neck  to  the  Reef,  you  can't  take  the 
inside  passage." 

"But  what  does  the  last  half  mean?"  per 
sisted  Harry. 

"  Don't  know  as  I  know,"  said  the  veteran, 
and  relapsed  into  silence,  in  which  all  joined 
him,  while  the  wind  howled  and  whistled  out 
side,  and  the  barred  windows  shook. 

Weary  and  restless  with  vain  waiting,  they 
looked  from  the  doorway  at  the  weather. 
The  door  went  back  with  a  slam,  and  the  gust 
swooped  down  on  them  with  that  special  blast 
that  always  seems  to  linger  just  outside  on 
such  nights,  ready  for  the  first  head  that  shows 


226  Malbone. 

itself.  They  closed  the  door  upon  the  flicker 
ing  fire  and  the  uncouth  shadows  within,  and 
went  forth  into  the  night.  At  first  the  solid 
blackness  seemed  to  lay  a  weight  on  their 
foreheads.  There  was  absolutely  nothing  to 
be  seen  but  the  two  lights  of  the  light-ship, 
glaring  from  the  dark  sea  like  a  wolfs  eyes 
from  a  cavern.  They  looked  nearer  and 
brighter  than  in  ordinary  nights,  and  appeared 
to  the  excited  senses  of  the  young  men  to 
dance  strangely  on  the  waves,  and  to  be 
always  opposite  to  them,  as  they  moved  along 
the  shore  with  the  wind  almost  at  their  backs. 
'  "  What  did  that  old  fellow  mean  ? "  said 
Malbone  in  Harry's  ear,  as  they  came  to  a 
protected  place  and  could  hear  each  other, 
"by  talking  of  Brenton's  Reef  coming  to 
Price's  Neck." 

"  Some  sailor's  doggerel,"  said  Harry,  indif 
ferently.  "  Here  is  Price's  Neck  before  us, 
and  yonder  is  Brenton's  Reef." 

"  Where  ? "  said  Philip,  looking  round  be 
wildered. 

The  lights  had  gone,  as  if  the  wolf,  weary 
of  watching,  had  suddenly  closed  his  eyes, 
and  slumbered  in  his  cave. 

Harry  trembled  and  shivered.  In  Heaven's 
name,  what  could  this  disappearance  mean  ? 


Malboiie.  227 

Suddenly  a  sheet  of  lightning  came,  so 
white  and  intense,  it  sent  its  light  all  the  way 
out  to  the  horizon  and  exhibited  far-off  vessels, 
that  reeled  and  tossed  and  looked  as  if  wan 
dering  without  a  guide.  But  this  was  not  so 
startling  as  what  it  showed  in  the  foreground. 

There  drifted  heavily  upon  the  waves,  with 
in  full  view  from  the  shore,  moving  parallel 
to  it,  yet  gradually  approaching,  an  uncouth 
shape  that  seemed  a  vessel  and  yet  not  a  ves 
sel;  two  stunted  masts  projected  above,  and 
below  there  could  be  read,  in  dark  letters  that 
apparently  swayed  and  trembled  in  the  wan 
lightning,  as  the  thing  moved  on, 

BRENTON'S   REEF. 

Philip,  leaning  against  a  rock,  gazed  into 
the  darkness  where  the  apparition  had  been  ; 
even  Harry  felt  a  thrill  of  half-superstitious 
wonder,  and  listened  half  mechanically  to  a 
rough  sailor's  voice  at  his  ear:  — 

"  God  !  old  Joe  was  right.  There's  one 
wreck  that  is  bound  to  make  many.  The 
light-ship  has  parted." 

"  Drifting  ashore,"  said  Harry,  his  accus 
tomed  clearness  of  head  coming  back  at  a 
flash.  "  Where  will  she  strike  ?  " 


228  Mai  bone. 

"  Price's  Neck,"  said  the  sailor. 

Harry  turned  to  Philip  and  spoke  to  him, 
shouting  in  his  ear  the  explanation.  Malbone's 
lips  moved  mechanically,  but  he  said  nothing. 
Passively,  he  let  Harry  take  him  by  the  arm, 
and  lead  him  on. 

Following  the  sailor,  they  rounded  a  pro 
jecting  point,  and  found  themselves  a  little 
sheltered  from  the  wind.  Not  knowing  the 
region,  they  stumbled  about  among  the  rocks, 
and  scarcely  knew  'when  they  neared  the  surf, 
except  when  a  wave  came  swashing  round 
their  very  feet.  Pausing  at  the  end  of  a  cove, 
they  stood  beside  their  conductor,  and  their 
eyes,  now  grown  accustomed,  could  make  out 
vaguely  the  outlines  of  the  waves. 

The  throat  of  the  cove  was  so  shoal  and 
narrow,  and  the  mass  of  the  waves  so  great, 
that  they  reared  their  heads  enormously,  just 
outside,  and  spending  their  strength  there,  left 
a  lower  lev?l  within  the  cove.  Yet  sometimes 
a  series  of  great  billows  would  come  straight 
on,  heading  directly  for  the  entrance,  and  then 
the  surface  of  the  water  within  was  seen  to 
swell  suddenly  upward  as  if  by  a  terrible  in 
ward  magic  of  its  own  ;  it  rose  and  rose,  as  if 
it  would  ingulf  everything  ;  then  as  rapidly 


Malbone.  229 

sank,  and  again  presented  a  mere  quiet  vesti 
bule  before  the  excluded  waves. 

They  saw  in  glimpses,  as  the  lightning 
flashed,  the  shingly  beach,  covered  with  a 
mass  of  creamy  foam,  all  tremulous  and  fluctu 
ating  in  the  wind  ;  and  this  foam  was  con 
stantly  torn  away  by  the  gale  in  great  shreds, 
that  whirled  by  them  as  if  the  very  fragments 
of  the  ocean  were  fleeing  from  it  in  terror,  to 
take  refuge  in  the  less  frightful  element  of 
air. 

Still  the  wild  waves  reared  their  heads,  like 
savage,  crested  animals,  now  white,  now  black, 
looking  in  from  the  entrance  of  the  cove. 
And  now  there  silently  drifted  upon  them 
something  higher,  vaster,  darker  than  them 
selves,  —  the  doomed  vessel.  It  was  strange 
how  slowly  and  steadily  she  swept  in,  —  for 
her  broken  chain-cable  dragged,  as  it  after 
wards  proved,  and  kept  her  stern-on  to  the 
shore,  —  and  they  could  sometimes  hear  amid 
the  tumult  a  groan  that  seemed  to  come  from 
the  very  heart  of  the  earth,  as  she  painfully 
drew  her  keel  over  hidden  reefs.  Over  five 
of  these  (as'  was  afterwards  found)  she  had  al 
ready  drifted,  and  she  rose  and  fell  more  than 
once  on  the  high  waves  at  the  very  mouth  of 


230  Mai  bone. 

the  cove,  like  a  wild  bird  hovering  ere  it 
pounces. 

Then  there  came  one  of  those  great  conflu 
ences  of  waves  described  already,  which,  lift 
ing  her  bodily  upward,  higher  and  higher  and 
higher,  suddenly  rushed  with  her  into  the 
basin,  filling  it  like  an  opened  dry-dock,  crash 
ing  and  roaring  round  the  vessel  and  upon  the 
rocks,  then  sweeping  out  again  and  leaving 
her  lodged,  still  stately  and  steady,  at  the  cen 
tre  of  the  cove. 

They  could  hear  from  the  crew  a  mingled 
sound,  that  came  as  a  shout  of  excitement  from 
some  and  a  shriek  of  despair  from  others. 
The  vivid  lightning  revealed  for  a  moment 
those  on  shipboard  to  those  on  shore  ;  and 
blinding  as  it  was,  it  lasted  long  enough 
to  show  figures  gesticulating  and  pointing. 
The  old  sailor,  Mitchell,  tried  to  build  a  fire 
among  the  rocks  nearest  the  vessel,  but  it 
was  impossible,  because  of  the  wind.  This 
was  a  disappointment,  for  the  light  would 
have  taken  away  half  the  danger,  and  more 
than  half  the  terror.  Though  the  cove  was 
more  quiet  than  the  ocean,  yet  it  was  fearful 
enough,  even  there.  The  vessel  might  hold 
together  till  morning,  but  who  could  tell  ?  It' 


Malbone.  231 

was  almost  certain  that  those  on  board  would 
try  to  land,  and  there  was  nothing  to  do  but 
to  await  the  effort.  The  men  from  the  farm 
house  had  meanwhile  come  down  with  ropes. 

It  was  simply  impossible  to  judge  with  any 
accuracy  of  the  distance  of  the  ship.  One  of 
these  new-comers,  who  declared  that  she  was 
lodged  very  near,  went  to  a  point  of  rocks, 
and  shouted  to  those  on  board  to  heave  him  a 
rope.  The  tempest  suppressed  his  voice,  as 
it  had  put  out  the  fire.  But  perhaps  the  light 
ning  had  showed  him  to  the  dark  figures  on 
the  stern  ;  for  when  the  next  flash  came,  they 
saw  a  rope  flung,  which  fell  short.  The  real 
distance  was  more  than  a  hundred  yards. 

Then  there  was  a  long  interval  of  darkness. 
The  moment  the  next  flash  came  they  saw  a 
figure  let  down  by  a  rope  from  the  stern  of  the 
vessel,  while  the  hungry  waves  reared  like 
wolves  to  seize  it.  Everybody  crowded  down 
to  the  nearest  rocks,  looking  this  way  and  that 
for  a  head  to  appear.  They  pressed  eagerly  in 
every  direction  where  a  bit  of  plank  or  a  bar 
rel-head  floated ;  they  fancied  faint  cries  here 
and  there,  and  went  aimlessly  to  and  fro.  A 
new  effort,  after  half  a  dozen  failures,  sent  a 
blaze  mounting  up  fitfully  among  the  rocks, 


232  Malbone. 

startling  all  with  the  sudden  change  its  bless 
ed  splendor  made.  Then  a  shrill  shout  from 
one  of  the  watchers  summoned  all  to  a  cleft 
in  the  cove,  half  shaded  from  the  firelight, 
where  there  came  rolling  in  amidst  the  surf, 
more  dead  than  alive,  the  body  of  a  man.  It 
was  the  young  foreigner,  John  Lambert's  boat 
man.  He  bore  still  around  him  the  rope  that 
was  to  save  the  rest. 

How  pale  and  eager  their  faces  looked  as 
they  bent  above  him  !  But  the  eagerness  was 
all  gone  from  his,  and  only  the  pallor  left. 
While  the  fishermen  got  the  tackle  rigged, 
such  as  it  was,  to  complete  the  communication 
with  the  vessel,  the  young  men  worked  upon 
the  boatman,  and  soon  had  him  restored  to 
consciousness.  He  was  able  to  'explain  that 
the  ship  had  been  severely  strained,  and  that 
all  on  board  believed  she  would  go  to  pieces 
before  morning.  No  one  would  risk  being  the 
first  to  take  the  water,  and  he  had  at  last  volun 
teered,  as  being  the  best  swimmer,  on  condi 
tion  that  Emilia  should  be  next  sent,  when  the 
communication  was  established. 

Two  ropes  were  then  hauled  on  board  the 
vessel,  a  larger  and  a  smaller.  By  the  flicker 
ing  firelight  and  the  rarer  flashes  of  lightning 


Malbone.  233 

(the  rain  now  falling  in  torrents)  they  saw  a 
hammock  slung  to  the  larger  rope  ;  a  woman's 
form  was  swathed  in  it  ;  and  the  smaller  rope 
being  made  fast  to  this,  they  found  by  pulling 
that  she  could  be  drawn  towards  the  shore. 
Those  on  board  steadied  the  hammock  as  it 
was  lowered  from  the  ship,  but  the  waves 
seemed  maddened  by  this  effort  to  escape 
their  might,  and  they  leaped  up  at  her  again 
and  again.  The  rope  drooped  beneath  her 
weight,  and  all  that  could  be  done  from  shore 
was  to  haul  her  in  as  fast  as  possible,  to  abbre 
viate  the  period  of  buffeting  and  suffocation. 
As  she  neared  the  rocks  she  could  be  kept 
more  safe  from  the  water  ;  faster  and  faster 
she  was  drawn  in  ;  sometimes  there  came 
some  hitch  and  stoppage,  but  by  steady  pa 
tience  it  was  overcome. 

She  was  so  near  the  rocks  that  hands 
were  already  stretched  to  grasp  her,  when 
there  came  one  of  the  great  surging  waves 
that  sometimes  filled  the  basin.  It  gave  a 
terrible  lurch  to  the  stranded  vessel  hitherto 
so  erect ;  the  larger  rope  snapped  instantly ; 
the  guiding  rope  was  twitched  from  the  hands 
that  held  it ;  and  the  canvas  that  held  Emilia 
was  caught  and  swept  away  like  a  shred  of 


234  Malbone. 

foam,  and  lost  amid  the  whiteness  of  the 
seething  froth  below.  Fifteen  minutes  after, 
the  hammock  came  ashore  empty,  the  lash 
ings  having  parted. 

The  cold  daybreak  was  just  opening,  though 
the  wind  still  blew  keenly,  when  they  found 
the  body  of  Emilia.  It  was  swathed  in  a  roll- 
of  sea-weed,  lying  in  the  edge  of  the  surf,  on  a 
broad,  flat  rock  near  where  the  young  boatman 
had  come  ashore.  The  face  was  not  disfigured  ; 
the  clothing  was  only  torn  a  little,  and  tangled 
closely  round  her  ;  but  the  life  was  gone. 

It  was  Philip  who  first  saw  her  ;  and  he  stood 
beside  her  for  a  moment  motionless,  stunned 
into  an  aspect  of  tranquillity.  This,  then,  was 
the  end.  All  his  ready  sympathy,  his  wooing 
tenderness,  his  winning  compliances,  his  self- 
indulgent  softness,  his  perilous  amiability,"his 
reluctance  to  give  pain  or  to  see  sorrow,  —  all 
had  ended  in  this.  For  once,  he  must  force 
even  his  accommodating  and  evasive  nature 
to  meet  the  plain,  blank  truth.  Now  all  his 
characteristics  appeared  changed  by  the  en 
counter  ;  it  was  Harry  who  was  ready,  thought 
ful,  attentive,  —  while  Philip,  who  usually  had 
all  these  traits,  was  paralyzed  among  his 
dreams.  Could  he  have  fancied  such  a  scene 


Malbone.  235 

beforehand,  he  would  have  vowed  that  no  hand 
but  his  should  touch  the  breathless  form  of 
Emilia.  As  it  was,  he  instinctively  made  way 
for  the  quick  gathering  of  the  others,  as  if 
almost  any  one  else  had  a  better  right  to  be 
there. 

The  storm  had  blown  itself  out  by  sunrise ; 
the  wind  had  shifted,  beating  down  the  waves  ; 
it  seemed  as  if  everything  in  nature  were  ex 
hausted.  The  very  tide  had  ebbed  away.  The 
light-ship  rested  between  the  rocks,  helpless, 
still  at  the  mercy  of  the  returning  waves,  and 
yet  still  upright  and  with  that  stately  look  of 
unconscious  pleading  which  all  shipwrecked 
vessels  wear.  It  is  wonderfully  like  the  look  I 
have  seen  in  the  face  of  some  dead  soldier,  on 
whom  war  had  done  its  worst.  Every  line  of 
a  ship  is  so  built  for  motion,  every  part,  while 
afloat,  seems  so  full  of  life  and  so  answering  to 
the  human  life  it  bears,  that  this  paralysis  of 
shipwreck  touches  the  imagination  as  if  the 
motionless  thing  had  once  been  animated  by  a 
soul. 

And  not  far  from  the  vessel,  in  a  chamber  of 
the  seaside  farm-house,  lay  the  tenderer  and 
fairer  wreck  of  Emilia.  Her  storms  and  her 
passions  were  ended.  The  censure  of  the  world, 


236  Malbone. 

the  anguish  of  friends,  the  clinging  arms  of 
love,  were  nothing  now  to  her.  Again  the  soft 
shelter  of  unconsciousness  had  clasped  her  in  ; 
but  this  time  the  trance  was  longer  and  the 
faintness  was  unto  death.  + 

From  the  moment  of  her  drifting  ashore,  it 
was  the  young  boatman  who  had  assumed  the 
right  to  care  for  her  and  to  direct  everything. 
Philip  seemed  stunned  ;  Harry  was  his  usual 
clear-headed  and  efficient  self;  but  to  his 
honest  eyes  much  revealed  itself  in  a  little 
while;  and  when  Hope  arrived  in  the  early 
morning,  he  said  to  her,  "  This  boatman,  who 
once  saved  your  life,  is  Emilia's  Swiss  lover, 
Antoine  Marval." 

"More  than  lover,"  said  the  young  Swiss, 
overhearing.  "  She  was  my  wife  before  God, 
when  you  took  her  from  me.  In  my  country, 
a  betrothal  is  as  sacred  as  a  marriage.  Then 
came  that  man,  he  filled  her  heart  with 
illusions,  and  took  her  away  in  my  ab 
sence.  When  my  brother  was  here  in  the 
corvette,  he  found  her  for  me.  Then  I 
came  for  her ;  I  saved  her  sister ;  then  I 
saw  the  name  on  the  card  and  would  not  give 
my  own.  I  became  her  servant.  She  saw  me 
in  the  yacht,  only  once  ;  she  knew  me  ;  she 


Malbone.  237 

was  afraid.  Then  she  said,  '  Perhaps  I  still 
love  you,  —  a  little  ;  I  do  not  know  ;  I  am  in 
despair  ;  take  me  from  this  home  I  hate.'  We 
sailed  that  day  in  the  small  boat  for  Nar- 
ragansett,  —  I  know  not  where.  She  hardly 
looked  up  or  spoke  ;  but  for  me,  I  cared  for 
nothing  since  she  was  with  me.  When  the 
storm  came,  she  was  frightened,  and  said, 
'  It  is  a  retribution.'  I  said,  '  You  shall  never 
go  back.'  She  never  did.  Here  she  is.  You 
cannot  take  her  from  me." 

Once  on  board  the  light-ship,  she  had  been 
assigned  the  captain's  state-room,  while  An- 
toine  watched  at  the  door.  She  seemed  to 
shrink  from  him  whenever  he  went  to  speak 
to  her,  he  owned,  but  she  answered  kindly  and 
gently,  begging  to  be  left  alone.  When  at 
last  the  vessel  parted  her  moorings,  he  per 
suaded  Emilia  to  come  on  deck  and  be  lashed 
to  the  mast,  where  she  sat  without  com 
plaint 

Who  can  fathom  the  thoughts  of  that  be 
wildered  child,  as  she  sat  amid  the  spray  and 
the  howling  of  the  blast,  while  the  doomed 
vessel  drifted  on  with  her  to  the  shore  ?  Did 
all  the  error  and  sorrow  of  her  life  pass  dis 
tinctly  before  her?  Or  did  the  roar  of  the 


238  Malbone. 

surf  lull  her  into  quiet,  like  the  unconscious 
kindness  of  wild  creatures  that  toss  and  bewil 
der  their  prey  into  unconsciousness  ere  they 
harm  it  ?  None  can  tell.  Death  answers  no 
questions ;  it  only  makes  them  needless. 

The  morning  brought  to  the  scene  John 
Lambert,  just  arrived  by  land  from  New 
York. 

The  passion  of  John  Lambert  for  his  wife 
was  of  that  kind  which  ennobles  while  it  lasts, 
but  which  rarely  outlasts  marriage.  A  man 
of  such  uncongenial  mould  will  love  an  en 
chanting  woman  with  a  mad,  absorbing  pas 
sion,  where  self-sacrifice  is  so  mingled  with 
selfishness  that  the  two  emotions  seem  one ; 
he  will  hungrily  yearn  to  possess  her,  to  call 
her  by  his  own  name,  to  hold  her  in  his  arms, 
to  kill  any  one  else  who  claims  her.  But  when 
she  is  once  his  wife,  and  his  arms  hold  a  body 
without  a  soul,  —  no  soul  at  least  for  him,— 
then  her  image  is  almost  inevitably  profaned, 
and  the  passion  which  began  too  high  for 
earth  ends  far  too  low  for  heaven.  Let  now 
death  change  that  form  to  marble,  and  in 
stantly  it  resumes  its  virgin  holiness  ;  though 
the  presence  of  life  did  not  .sanctify,  its  de 
parture  does.  It  is  only  the  true  lover  to 


Malbone.  239 

whom  the  breathing  form  is  as  sacred  as  the 
breathless. 

That  ideality  of  nature  which  love  had  de 
veloped  in  this  man,  and  which  had  already 
drooped  a  little  during  his  brief  period  of  mar 
riage,  was  born  again  by  the  side  of  death. 
While  Philip  wandered  off  silent  and  lonely 
with  his  grief,  John  Lambert  knelt  by  the 
beautiful  remains,  talking  inarticulately,  his 
eyes  streaming  with  unchecked  tears.  Again 
was^Emilia,  in  her  marble  paleness,  the  calm 
centre  of  a  tragedy  she  herself  had  caused. 
The  wild,  ungoverned  child  was  the  image  of 
peace  ;  it  was  the  stolid  and  prosperous  man 
who  was  in  the  storm.  It  was  not -till  Hope 
came  that  there  was  any  change.  Then  his 
prostrate  nature  sought  hers,  as  the  needle 
leaps  to  the  iron ;  the  first  touch  of  her  hand, 
the  sight  of  her  kiss  upon  Emilia's  forehead, 
made  him  strong.  It  was  the  thorough  sub 
jection  of  a  worldly  man  to  the  higher  or 
ganization  of  a  noble  woman,  and  thenceforth 
it  never  varied.  In  later  years,  after  he  had 
foolishly  sought,  as  men  will,  to  win  her  to 
a  nearer  tie,  there  was  no  moment  when  she 
had  not  full  control  over  his  time,  his  energies, 
and  his  wealth. 


240  Malbonc. 

After  it  was  all  ended,  Hope  told  him  every 
thing  that  had  happened  ;  but  in  that  wild 
moment  of  his  despair  she  told  him  nothing. 
Only  she  and  Harry  knew  the  story  of  the 
young  Swiss;  and  now  that  Emilia  was 
gone,  her  early  lover  had  no  wish  to  speak  of 
her  to  any  but  these  two,  or  to  linger  long 
where  she  had  been  doubly  lost  to  him,  by 
marriage  and  by  death.  The  world,  with  all 
its  prying  curiosity,  usually  misses  the  key  to 
the  very  incidents  about  which  it  asks  most 
questions  ;  and  of  the  many  who  gossiped  or 
mourned  concerning  Emilia,  none  knew  the 
tragic  complication  which  her  death  alone 
could  have  solved.  The  breaking  of  Hope's 
engagement  to  Philip  was  attributed  to  every 
cause  but  the  true  one.  And  when  the  storm 
of  the  great  Rebellion  broke  over  the  land,  its 
vast  calamity  absorbed  all  minor  griefs. 


Malbone.  241 

XXIII. 
REQUIESCAT. 

THANK  God  !  it  is  not  within  the  power 
of  one  man's  errors  to  blight  the  promise 
of  a  life  like  that  of  Hope.  It  is  but  a  feeble 
destiny  that  is  wrecked  by  passion,  when  it 
should  be  ennobled.  Aunt  Jane  and  Kate 
watched  Hope  closely  during  her  years  of 
probation,  for  although  she  fancied  herself  to 
be  keeping  her  own  counsel,  yet  her  career  lay 
in  broad  light  for  them.  She  was  like  yonder 
sailboat,  which  floats  conspicuous  by  night 
amid  the  path  of  moonbeams,  and  which  yet 
seems  to  its  own  voyagers  to  be  remote  and 
unseen  upon  a  waste  of  waves. 

Why  should  I  linger  over  the  details  of  her 
life,  after  the  width  of  ocean  lay  between  her 
and  Malbone,  and  a  manhood  of  self-denying 
usefulness  had  begun  to  show  that  even  he 
could  learn  something  by  life's  retributions  ? 
We  know  what  she  was,  and  it  is  of  secondary 
importance  where  she  went  or  what  she  did. 
Kindle  the  light  of  the  light-house,  and  it  has 
ii  p 


242  Malbone. 

nothing  to  do,  except  to  shine.  There  is  for 
it  no  wrong  direction.  There  is  no  need  to 
ask,  "  How  ?  Over  which  especial  track  of 
distant  water  must  my  light  go  forth,  to  find 
the  wandering  vessel  to  be  guided  in  ? "  It 
simply  shines.  Somewhere  there  is  a  ship 
that  needs  it,  or  if  not,  the  light  does  its  duty. 
So  did  Hope. 

We  must  leave  her  here.  Yet  I  cannot 
bear  to  think  of  her  as  passing  through  earth 
ly  life  without  tasting  its  deepest  bliss,  without 
the  last  pure  ecstasy  of  human  love,  without 
the  kisses  of  her  own  children  on  her  lips, 
their  waxen  fingers  on  her  bosom. 

And  yet  again,  is  this  life  so  long  ?  May  it 
not  be  better  to  wait  until  its  little  day  is  done, 
and  the  summer  night  of  old  age  has  yielded 
to  a  new  morning,  before  attaining  that  acme 
of  joy  ?  Are  there  enough  successive  grades 
of  bliss  for  all  eternity,  if  so  much  be  consum 
mated  here  ?  Must  all  novels  end  with  an 
earthly  marriage,  and  nothing  be  left  for 
heaven  ? 

Perhaps,  for  such  as  Hope,  this  life  is  given 
to  show  what  happiness  might  be,  and  they 
await  some  other  sphere  for  its  fulfilment. 
The  greater  part  of  the  human  race  live  out 


Malbone.  243 

their  mortal  years  without  attaining  more  than 
a  far-off  glimpse  of  the  very  highest  joy. 
Were  this  life  all,  its  very  happiness  were 
sadness.  If,  as  I  doubt  not,  there  be  another 
sphere,  then  that  which  is  unfulfilled  in  this 
must  yet  find  completion,  nothing  omitted, noth 
ing  denied.  And  though  a  thousand  oracles 
should  pronounce  this  thought  an  idle  dream, 
neither  Hope  nor  I  would  believe  them. 

It  was  a  radiant  morning  of  last  February 
when  I  walked  across  the  low  hills  to  the 
scene  of  the  wreck.  Leaving  the  road  before 
reaching  the  Fort,  I  struck  across  the  wild 
moss-country,  full  of  boulders  and  footpaths 
and  stunted  cedars  and  sullen  ponds.  I 
crossed  the  height  of  land,  where  the  ruined 
lookout  stands  like  the  remains  of  a  Druidical 
temple,  and  then  went  down  toward  the  ocean. 
Banks  and  ridges  of  snow  lay  here  and  there 
among  the  fields,  and  the  white  lines  of  distant 
capes  seemed  but  drifts  running  seaward.  The 
ocean  was  gloriously  alive,  —  the  blackest  blue, 
with  white  caps  on  every  wave  ;  the  shore  was 
all  snowy,  and  the  gulls  were  flying  back  and 
forth  in  crowds ;  you  could  not  tell  wheth 
er  they  were  the  white  waves  coming  ashore, 
or  bits  of  snow  going  to  sea.  A  single  frag- 


244  Malbone. 

ment  of  ship-timber,  black  with  time  and 
weeds,  and  crusty  with  barnacles,  heaved  to 
and  fro  in  the  edge  of  the  surf,  and  two  fisher 
men's  children,  a  boy  and  girl,  tilted  upon  it 
as  it  moved,  clung  with  the  semblance  of  ter 
ror  to  each  other,  and  played  at  shipwreck. 

The  rocks  were  dark  with  moisture,  steam 
ing  in  the  sun.  Great  sheets  of  ice,  white 
masks  of  departing  winter,  clung  to  every 
projecting  cliff,  or  slid  with  crash  and  shiver 
into  the  surge.  Icicles  dropped  their  slow 
and  reverberating  tears  upon  the  rock  where 
Emilia  once  lay  breathless ;  and  it  seemed  as 
if  their  cold,  chaste  drops  were  sent  to  cleanse 
from  her  memory  each  scarlet  stain,  and  leave 
it  virginal  and  pure. 


THE    END. 


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